Commentary on Yeats' poem, "Leda and the Swan".

Leda and the Swan In the sonnet "Leda and the Swan", W.B Yeats retells the Greek myth of Leda's rape by Zeus, as he uses diction to emphasize the divinity of Zeus, and the helplessness of Leda. Most of the words used to identify Leda describe her physical aspects with helpless connotations, such as "the staggering girl (...) the nape (...) her helpless breast (...) those terrified vague fingers (...) the loosening thighs". On the other hand, the …

…at all, and afterwards, he simply discards her. After the assault, the description of Leda's emotions, and the climax, a silence follows as seen in the exaggerated indentation of the last stanza. The alliteration of the letter 'b' in "brute blood" is cacophonic and harsh and highlights the brutality of the rape. Nevertheless, throughout the poem, despite the fact that it is about a rape, Yeats controls the violence within the structure of those lines.