Compare and contrast these two poems At one o clock in the morning by Charles Baudelaire and the second coming by William Butler Yeats. Use literary terms to compare and contrast poems.

Charles Baudelaire in his poem At One in the Morning centers on isolation. He presents a solitary individual who is comfortable with his solitary life. He dislikes everyone and everything around him and creates a barrier between him and society. Everything seems horrible; interacting with people and shaking hands with them without gloves.

The individual however does not show total contempt towards people. He secretly wishes to belong to society. This is evident through his few hypocritical acts of kindness towards a few people. This poem portrays the desperate state of human experience and problems encountered in human interactions (Baudelaire).

In the poem the second coming’, the author has widely used terrifying imagery, symbolism and visionary images to show the second coming of Christ. The language used is as well stunning. A falcon-falconer image in the first stanza has been used to represent youth who have abandoned the way of life of their parents to embraced new way of living including new music and new literature. Another bird metaphor in second stanza where desert birds are shown feasting on sphinx but flee on seeing approaching beasts.

In the second stanza, Yeats calls for a revelation. However he is the revelator as he reveals the second coming of Christ. The beast’s slow movement denotes Christ’s coming slowly approaching. This and other visionary images are presented in this poem.

The poem is a riddle as it ends with a question. The hints to the answer are given in the whole poem but no straight answer is given.

Imagery is employed through use of cat figures to represent a great leader. Rhyme has been used sparingly as it is only in the first stanza where rhyming words; man and sun, have been used (SparkNotes Editors).

Both poems address the plight of human existence and conditions. They set out the truth on their themes and the two authors remain some of the past reknown authors in the world. 

Works cited

Baudelaire, Charles. At One O’Clock In The Morning by Charles Baudelaire.PoemHunter.Com

– Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.

<http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-one-o-clock-in-the-mornin

SparkNotes Editors. SparkNote on Yeats’s Poetry. SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002.

Web. 15 Oct. 2012.