Violence In Leda and the Swan by W.B.Yeats Essay -- essays research pa

Violence In Leda and the swan by W.B.YeatsLeda and the Swan is whizz of the most well known poems by Yeats, although its controversy as to what re tout ensembley happens during the lines of this sonnet. There are many different ways as to how one can approach the interpretation of the poem, is it influenced by Yeats own life, in which case he puts all his frustration towards Maud Gonne into words, or is it a poem about power, or about politics? I rent deliberately chosen not to take into consideration the political and social background of Ireland at that time. This, because I prefer to restrain my analysis to the poem itself, and how one could interpret its proper meaning. As a consequence, it is interesting and important to remember that one of Yeats many interests was Greek mythology, more precisely issues linked to Helen of Troy. In this poem, Yeats shows his mess of how Leda got pregnant by Zeus who was disguised as a swan when he raped her. This act gave save to two eg gs, and one of them was to become Helen of Troy. It is her birth that was the real cause of the Trojan War and Agamemnons death. To write this poem Yeats was inspired by a carving, a Hellenistic bas-relief reproduced in Elie Faures History of imposture (1921) , which he owned. His description of what happens in the poem concurs with this carving. This is a strong poem, where the image of a woman can be seen as dirtied, dehumanised, and shameful, the girl was not unaccompanied raped in a normal way, but it was an animal that carried out the act. Still, Yeats describes what happened in such a way that one wonders if at many point, Ledas body actually is led by lust, and puts back her fear, or if she is really trying to fight back, as we will see further on, in... ...me, he does play on provocation, as when the poem was written Gaelic tradition included a strong involvement of the catholic church both in law making, and in morality. There were censorship everywhere, in books, f ilms, and to show how far it went, we can add that even contraception and divorce was made illegal Yeats was against all this, and it can be felt in his poem, as it touches pornography, and female purity.BibliographyCullingford Elizabeth, Gender and history in Yeats love poetry, New York Syracuse Hargrove, Nancy D., Aesthetic Distance in Yeasts Leda and the Swan, in Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 39, 1983Scott C. Holstad, California State University, Long Beach, Yeasts Leda and the Swan Psycho-Sexual Therapy in Action Univ.PressW.B.Yeats, Selected poems, Penguin Modern Classicswww.sparknotes.com