"Slouching toward ..."

[nq:1]I am intrigued by the expression "Slouching toward X". A few of the Xs I have seen are Bethleheim, Athens, Utopia, Armageddon. What does the expression connote? Is it a prepositional idiom or is there a literary allusion?[/nq]
It's based on WB Yeats's poem "The Second Coming":

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart

[nq:1]I am intrigued by the expression "Slouching toward X". A few of the Xs I have seen are Bethleheim, Athens, Utopia, Armageddon. What does the expression connote? Is it a prepositional idiom or is there a literary allusion?[/nq]
Indeed, there is:
The Second Coming
(W. B. Yeats)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apa

[nq:1]I am intrigued by the expression "Slouching toward X". A few of the Xs I have seen are Bethleheim, Athens, ... literary allusion? Thanks. Ashok PS: Is there a good reference for literary allusions on the net? And for prepositional idioms?[/nq]
It means moving resignedly, or slowly and without much enthusiasm. towards the destination.

[nq:2]I am intrigued by the expression "Slouching toward X". A ... it a prepositional idiom or is there a literary allusion?[/nq]
[nq:1]Indeed, there is: The Second Coming (W. B. Yeats) Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear ... blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst[/nq]
I su

[nq:1]I suspect you and John Dean cribbed from the same source, since you both have plural "convictions" here.[/nq]
I suspect that John and I both found sites with the same wording. Whether we cribbed from the same site is up in the air: the web is well-known for having the same error repeated through hundreds or even thousands of sites from cross-cribbing.
[nq:1]Google weighs in wi

My Collected Works (vol. I: The Poems , ed. Richard J. Finneran, Macmillan, 1989), which calls itself "The complete, standard edition", has both the singular "conviction" and the italics. Apparently the poem was originally published in a volume titled Michael Robartes and the Dancer , in 1921, but the copy-text used by Finneran was the 1933 Collected Poems . The apparatus makes no mention of emend

[nq:1]And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?[/nq]
I hope I slouched towards my birth. Start the way you mean to go on, that's what I say.

Phil C.

Can't find Yeats amid the chaos, but the Norton Anthology of Modern English Poetry also has "conviction", "towards" (as one might expect) and italics for "Spiritus Mundi". I suppose the italics are the reason for the persistent rumour that the SM is a medieval religious work.
OBaue, and speaking of correct punctuation: the last lines, in which a statement and a question are linked by "and", wo

[nq:2]I am intrigued by the expression "Slouching toward X". A few of the Xs I have seen are Bethleheim, Athens, Utopia, Armageddon. . . .[/nq]
[nq:1]It's based on WB Yeats's poem "The Second Coming":[/nq]
Cf. also the title of the poem. In the English Biblical tradition, the "second coming" is the end of the world, viz. various disasters (via the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) and then

[nq:2]Indeed, there is: The Second Coming (W. B. Yeats) Turning ... is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst[/nq]
[nq:1]I suspect you and John Dean cribbed from the same source, since you both have plural "convictions" here. Google weighs in with about 5 times more cites for singular "conviction", but I don't have an authoritative print source handy.[/nq]
Mea culpa. I did