Leda and the Swan (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Butler Yeats
- First Published: 1924
- Type of Work: Sonnet
- Genres: Poetry, Sonnet
- Subjects: Mythology or myths, Rape, Legends, Gods or goddesses, Birds, Greek or Roman times, Trojan War, Swans
The Poem
“Leda and the Swan” is a sonnet that, like the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, divides into an octave that presents a narrative and a sestet that comments on the narrative. Although the rhyme scheme of the first eight lines follows the typical Shakespearean form (abab, cdcd), the next six lines follow the expected Petrarchan (efg, efg) rhyme scheme.
The octave essentially describes the god Zeus’s forced and unannounced impregnation of Leda and her ineffectual human efforts at resisting this sudden implosion in her “loosening...
[The entire page is 1595 words long]
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