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Slouching towards Bethlehem

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on September 16, 2007

In Reply to: Slouching towards Bethlehem posted by Smokey Stover on September 16, 2007

: : : Where did the phrase "Slouching towards Bethlehem" originate?

: : A poem by WB Yeats called "The Second Coming" ends with the couplet "And what rough beast, its time come round at last/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?". The American journalist Joan Didion used the "Slouching towards Bethlehem", taken from this poem, as the title of a collection of essays on modern American life published in 1968. You can find plenty of information on the Yeats poem and Joan Didion's work via Google. (VSD)

: You can also check our archive (back one page, search box at top) s.v. slouching towards Bethlehem, where the complete poem is shown.
: SS

There is also a book by a former judge named Robert Bork called Slouching Towards Gomorrah, published in 1996. Judge Bork, who a few years earlier was nominated to the Supreme Court of the U.S. but was not confirmed by the Senate, contends that the rough beast of Western society is finished being born at Bethlehem and is headed straight for Gomorrah.

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