Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan.

• Has a sonnet form - earliest form of love poetry*
• Written in 1923 published in 1924 anthology of the tower
• *Shakesperian octet and a Multonic seset - he has taken two of the greatest english poets and combined the two types of sonnets they used.
• Pastorl images describe something very calm , this pastrual is very hot blooded.
• uses calm and seductive language to describe something horrific ( like the stolen child but this time describing ****)
• Purists will be shocked at his messing with the sonnet form
• hes taken things that will cut across his audience. Shocking them using such beautiful language
• the octet is what hes got to say
• in the stset he analyses the octet he modulates it, extends the argument, questions, qualities said and contextualises it.
• the last two lines bring rhetorical question
• Leda was the wife of the kind of spata tyndareus. she was very beautiful and zeus wanted leda for his own. it was pure lust. Zeus took the form of a giant swan and flew down and ****d leda. she has 4 children as a result: castor and pollux - war heroes and clytenmestra and helen of troy - the most beautiful women ever.
• Yeats has made us veiw her events from many perspectives and by the end shows it as an abuse of power with no love.
• could be seen as yeats expressing his darkest desires with maud
• leda is he beloved ireland and zeus is englands who has abused ireland
• the end…