Biblical Allusion Research Paper

Biblical Allusion Essay Biblical allusion is often used in poetry to convey complex ideas in a the average person would understand. The Bible was something back then that everyone was familiar with, could be referenced and easily understood. On His Blindness by John Milton, The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, and The Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot all show excellent examples of Biblical allusion within their structure. This allows their complex ideas to be conveyed in a simpler way. On His Blindness by John Milton makes multiple references to God throughout the poem. The use of Biblical allusion is conventional, because the speaker uses the Bible as a source for answers to life’s problems. He uses the Bible as a source of insight

The title itself speaks about the Second Coming of Christ, or the apocalypse. This infers that everything is at an end. The theme of good versus evil is brought to light as the Second Coming is mentioned frequently throughout the poem. In the Bible the Second Coming was a time when the forces of good and evil fought, and brought about the end of the world as evil begins to take over. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” (7-8 Yeats). This was written around the time of World War I, which was the war that was thought to end all wars. This is a parallel to the final battle between good and evil described when Christ is prophesied to return. The Second Coming helps highlights this conflict by alluding to the

The Second Coming and On His Blindness can be compared as in On His Blindness, the narrator is seemingly waiting for the Second Coming, whereas in The Second Coming, the end of the world is already upon us. All three poems are similar because they all represent a crisis of some kind. On His Blindness represents the speaker trying to cope with how he is going to live his life blind. The Second Coming represents the end of the world and all evil things in the world coming to light. This is a less personal crisis, as it encompasses the entire world. The Journey of the Magi shows a crisis of people not knowing whether the birth of Jesus was a good thing or bad thing. They feared what his birth might bring to their futures. The Second Coming conveys its Biblical allusions very plainly. On His Blindness gets its theme across in a conventional way, by drawing upon inspiration from the Bible like any other person