The meaning of "mere" in Yeats's "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,

Can the adjective mere apply to "anarchy"? I've always taken it to mean the same thing as "only", in a dismissive way. E.g He's merely a baby. -> He's only/just a baby.

So does the phrase mere anarchy mean that the anarchy was nothing serious, not much to worry about?

Solution 1:

Mere, when it came into English from Latin and OF, meant “pure, unmixed”, and was usually used as Yeats uses it here: mere anarchy means absolute anarchy, sheer anarchy, anarchy unmixed with order, “nothing less than” anarchy.

Mere could of course also be used with deprecated qualities, with the complementary sense “nothing more than”: mere folly is folly unmixed with wisdom, mere conjecture is conjecture unmixed with fact, and that use predominates today. Dictionaries may call this “obsolete” or “archaic”, but it is at most an archaic use, not an archaic meaning.

Solution 2:

I think it refers to the obsolete meaning of mere:

• pure.
• absolute

The Free Dictionary

From Yeatsvision.com:

• The word ‘Mere’ means both pure and only, and the first section further emphasises the generality and absoluteness of the situation with words such as ‘everywhere’ and ‘all’. The ‘Mere anarchy’ which is loosed (by whom?) like a plague or scourge then becomes a tide dimmed by blood, recalling the bloody seas of the Revelation of St John, the flood from the mouth of the serpent and the vials of wrath (Rev 8:8; 12:15; 16:1-4).

Solution 3:

In this case, I believe the author is using 'mere' in the sense that anarchy is a state without order, a base existence. 'Mere' in this case amplifies the despair of the condition, a resolution of one's fate... At least, the way I read it.