Things fall apart the center cannot hold

Q: Who said the Centre will not hold?

the centre cannot hold, a phrase from the poem The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.

Q: Who wrote Things Fall Apart The Centre Cannot hold?

Things fall apart: the apocalyptic appeal of WB Yeatss The Second Coming. Written 100 years ago, Yeatss poem has been absorbed into the cultural bloodstream from Chinua Achebe to The Sopranos, Joan Didion to Gordon Gecko.

Table of Contents Show

More by W. B. Yeats
The Young Man's Song
The Sorrow of Love
The Player Queen
What does the center will not hold mean?
Who said the Centre will not hold?
When the center Cannot hold anarchy is the only hope?
Who wrote Things Fall Apart The Centre Cannot hold?

Home
My Books
Browse ▾
- Recommendations
- Choice Awards
- Genres
- Giveaways
- New Releases
- Lists
- Explore
- News & Interviews
- Art
- Biography
- Business
- Children's
- Christian
- Classics
- Comics
- Cookbooks
- Ebooks
- Fantasy
- Fiction
- Graphic Novels
- Historical Fiction
- History
- Horror
- Memoir
- Music
- Mystery
- Nonfiction
- Poetry
- Psychology
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction
- Self Help
- Sports
- Thriller
- Travel
- Young Adult
- More Genres

Sign In
Join

Profile
Friends
Groups
Discussions
Comments
Reading Challenge
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Quotes
Favorite genres
Friends’ recommendations
Account settings
Help
Sign out

Home
My Books
Browse ▾
- Recommendations
- Choice Awards
- Genres
- Giveaways
- New Releases
- Lists
- Explore
- News & Interviews
- Art
- Biography
- Business
- Children's
- Christian
- Classics
- Comics
- Cookbooks
- Ebooks
- Fantasy
- Fiction
- Graphic Novels
- Historical Fiction
- History
- Horror
- Memoir
- Music
- Mystery
- Nonfiction
- Poetry
- Psychology
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction
- Self Help
- Sports
- Thriller
- Travel
- Young Adult
- More Genres

Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

More by W. B. Yeats

The Young Man's Song

I whispered, "I am too young,"  
And then, "I am old enough";   
Wherefore I threw a penny   
To find out if I might love.   
"Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,"   
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,   
I am looped in the loops of her hair.   
   
Oh, love is the crooked thing,   
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,   
For he would be thinking of love   
Till the stars had run away,   
And the shadows eaten the moon.   
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

The Sorrow of Love

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves, 
The full round moon and the star-laden sky, 
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves, 
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry. 
  
And then you came with those red mournful lips, 
And with you came the whole of the world's tears, 
And all the sorrows of her labouring ships, 
And all the burden of her myriad years. 
  
And now the sparrows warring in the eaves, 
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky, 
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves 
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

The Player Queen

(Song from an Unfinished Play)


My mother dandled me and sang,   
'How young it is, how young!'   
And made a golden cradle   
That on a willow swung.   
   
'He went away,' my mother sang,
'When I was brought to bed,'   
And all the while her needle pulled   
The gold and silver thread.   
   
She pulled the thread and bit the thread   
And made a golden gown,
And wept because she had dreamt that I   
Was born to wear a crown.   
   
'When she was got,' my mother sang,   
'I heard a sea-mew cry,   
And saw a flake of the yellow foam 
That dropped upon my thigh.'   
   
How therefore could she help but braid   
The gold into my hair,   
And dream that I should carry   
The golden top of care?

What does the center will not hold mean?

Yeats wrote this poem in 1919, when post-World War I Europe was in the grip of a stark and bleak period, one in which the center felt as if would not hold. Then there was a sense that the institutions upon which a nation depends were in distress and the very fabric of society was fraying.

Who said the Centre will not hold?

"the centre cannot hold", a phrase from the poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats.

When the center Cannot hold anarchy is the only hope?

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is lost. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”

Who wrote Things Fall Apart The Centre Cannot hold?

'Things fall apart': the apocalyptic appeal of WB Yeats's The Second Coming. Written 100 years ago, Yeats's poem has been absorbed into the cultural bloodstream from Chinua Achebe to The Sopranos, Joan Didion to Gordon Gecko.