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

Violence In Leda and the swan by W.B.Yeats â€Å"Leda and the Swan† is one of the most well known poems by Yeats, although it’s controversy as to what really 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 have 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 vision of how Leda got pregnant by Zeus who was disguised as a swan when he raped her. This act gave birth to two eggs, and one of them was to become Helen of Troy. It is her birth that was the real cause of the Trojan War and Agamemnon’s death. To write this poem Yeats was inspired by a carving, a Hellenistic bas-relief reproduced in Elie Faure's History of Art (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 only 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 some point, Leda’s 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, films, 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. Bibliography: Cullingford Elizabeth, Gender and history in Yeats’ love poetry, New York: Syracuse Hargrove, Nancy D., â€Å"Aesthetic Distance in Yeast’s ‘Leda and the Swan,’† in Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 39, 1983 Scott C. Holstad, California State University, Long Beach, Yeast’s 'Leda and the Swan': Psycho-Sexual Therapy in Action Univ.Press W.B.Yeats, Selected poems, Penguin Modern Classics www.sparknotes.com