The Center Does Not Hold

Question

Hello,What is the general meaning of the phrase "the center does not hold"? Thank you.

Virginia274 · Accepted Answer

This is just a phrase and it is devoid of context. Where did you find it? What is the context and do you have an example of it in use? http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html might help.

CalifJim · Answer

SuperESLWhat is the general meaning of the phrase "the center does not hold"?

Everything goes flying off in all directions. Chaos.

That's how I take it.

CJ

Clive · Answer

It could just mean that the bottom of my grocery bag is going to tear, and my tomatoes will all fall out.

But the phrase is also a profound and well-known part of a famous poem by Yates, called The Second Coming.

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?

The Center Does Not Hold

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