W.B.Yeats and Leda and the Swan
Given the odd tales brought to us by Greek mythology, one could very well imagine the stories having been unearthed from some antique tabloid magazine. In the case of Leda, subject of W. B. Yeats' poem "Leda and the Swan," the banner headline may have run as follows: "WOMAN IMPREGNATED BY SWAN, FOUR CHILDREN HATCH FROM EGGS". Kind of brings new meaning to the phrase "love nest," doesn't it? All joking aside, the myth of Leda and the swan features Zeus (most powerful among the Greek gods) coming down to earth in the form of a swan to woo Leda, wife of Tyndareus. She winds up giving birth to four children, two mortal (Castor and Clytemnestra) and two immortal (Polydeuces and Helen). Yeats' poem focuses not on the monumental events that Leda's offspring went on to experience (and cause), but rather on the moment of the meeting of woman and winged one.As for the classical mythological history of Leda and Zeus, Carlos Parada's Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology tells us that Zeus, in swan form, joined with Leda, on the same night that her husband had. Zeus's children, Polydeuces and Helen, were born from an egg laid by Leda and Tyndareus' children were Castor and Clytemnestra. However, som
Macrae. Alasdair D. F. W. B. Yeats. St. Martin's Press: New York. 1995 Writing the poem in a Petrarchan sonnet, Yeats sets a tone from the first three words: "A sudden blow" (1). Immediately, we are emotionally involved in the poem. His words indicate to the readers how suddenly and unexpectedly the rape of Leda begins. Yeats writes in the octave the events prior to the union of Zeus and Leda, and the in sestet the ensuing events and visions of them. Though not immediately obvious due, in part, to the shocking aspect of the subject matter and beauty of Yeats' language, we can see that the poem does indeed have a rhyme scheme, following the ababcdcd efgefg pattern. In the octave, Yeats creates an image of time nearly standing still, with all these events of great magnitude happening to Leda. The reader may almost see the scene as a series of still photographs. The immediate immersion into the action puts the reader in a similar position to Leda, struggling to make sense of what is occurring, what is assaulting our senses. The initial flurry of activity, strangely, seems both shockingly real and somewhat muted, as though we were watching ourselves from a distance. The immediacy of the situation, however, remains. The final half of the sestet leaves us wondering if it was, in fact, Leda who saw these visions, and tries to offer some explanation for the possibility. The reader is asked if, before the Zeus-swan released her, she received some sort of psychic link to the destiny of two of her children, the mortal daughter of her husband Tyndareus (Clytemnestra), and the immortal daughter of Zeus (Helen). We are left wondering if Leda knew the destinies of the children that had been set into motion with Zeus' rape of her. Encarta(r) 98 Desk Encyclopedia (c) & 1996-97 Microsoft Corporation. . The poem leaves the reader with many questions. Did Leda realize the swan is Zeus? Did she try to resist at all? Did Leda glimpse the future irrevocably shaped by her children? All these questions posed by the poem are left to the reader to decide. Again, in Yeats' gyres, the answers to them have little, if any significance. Yet, to the reader, they can completely change the interpretation of the poem. Like many of Yeats' other
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1518
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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