Comparison between The Wasteland by TS Eliot and The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats The First World War radically changed Europe's perspective on man. Before the war it was believed that man was innately good, after the war people were disappointed by this view of man. Both Thomas Sterns Eliot and William Butler Yeats felt this disenchantment deeply and demonstrated it in their poetry. In addition to the war, Eliot and Yeats also saw the continuing turmoil in Europe, such as the Russian Revolution and the Irish Rebellions, as confirmation of their fear of human nature and expanded their disillusionment in "The Waste Land" and "The Second Coming ". ."The poets shared more than disbelief in the goodness of human nature, both also had religious experiences that colored their thoughts. Eliot was an atheist early in his life and converted to Christianity, coming to believe in it fervently. Eliot played also with Buddhism during a phase of his writing "The Wasteland" (Southam 132, on the other hand, grew up as a practicing Christian and when he wrote "The Second Coming" he was forming his personal philosophy based on the accumulation of everything). "[he] had read, thought, experienced, and written over many years" (Harrison. 1). His philosophy, therefore, included Christianity as a factor in his life, but not as significant a factor as in Eliot's life. Because of the importance of religion in their lives, Yeats and Eliot used many mythological and religious allusions in their poems. Although both poets shared a disenchantment with human nature, their different religions led them to see different outcomes on the horizon. of humanity. Eliot saw the future as redeemable, while Yeats believed it could only... middle of paper..." Works Cited Harrison, John. "What rude beast? Yeats, Nietzsche and historical rhetoric in "The Second Coming". Leavis Electrical Library, F. R. "The Waste Land". TS Eliot: A Collection of Critical Essays.ed.HughKenner. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1962. 104-109 "Rudyard Kipling and William ButlerYeats"http://www.en.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316unit4/studentprojects/kiplingyeats/intro.htmlSoutham, BC A guide to the selected poems of TS Eliot. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1994. UVA Lecture Notes, Department of English, lit. introduction to English from 1890 to 1989.http://www.faraday.clas.virginia.edu./~sg5p/Class_notes_2.htmlVickery, John B. The Literary Impact of The Golden Bough. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.