Leda And The Swan Yeats Summary

The poem Leda and the Swan is about the rape of Leda committed by Zeus in disguise as a swan.  Because of what they have done, it sets history in motion.  Thus, it's fated that Helen will launch the war of a thousand ships, how Troy will fall, and Agamemnon will be murdered,...etc.

The portrayals of the Siren in The Odyssey and “Siren Song” can be compared through point of view, tone, and imagery. In Homer’s poem the Siren is seen as an irresistible desire, a toxic aspiration that manipulated and captivated men to come closer. In “Siren Song” the Siren is portrayed as merely a taunting boredom. She herself tells us that to her it is boring, “But it works every

He maintains his focus on Greek myths not only because of the sheer number of myths around the world, making it impossible to interpret and clarify them all, but also because European men, who would have been familiar with the myths from Greece, write most of the classics we analyze. He explains that these myths are not only a part of them but also “so much a part of the fabric of our consciousness, of our unconscious really, that we scarcely notice” (Foster, 51). Which suggests that, we can recognize Greek myths even if we do not realize it. With this simple fact presented to us, we no longer wonder why allusions to Greek myths have been used since they emerged and are still employed today. Myths are often exercised as “overt subject matter for poems and paintings and operas and novels” but more often “writers have…borrowed from and emulated” these myths (Foster, 52, 53). Instead of explaining every detail about every character, place or moment authors rely on other stories, such as myths, to expand and develop their tale. The writer will subtly hint at myths and hope you recognize their allusions to these old legends. Since we established that, we know these myths, whether consciously or not, we can take these allusions and decipher any hidden meanings the author has for us, giving each story a new level.

    The last three lines of the poem, "And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, /Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied, / The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor," are the strongest. Yeats is saying that, although they are unhappy with their lives, they have not given up hope. They still feel that they can find perfect happiness. They realize that this happiness cannot be found in the lives they are currently living. Yeats often used the image of the cross or of Christ’s crucifixion to symbolize things such as "discord, incompleteness, opposition, mortality, temporality" (Ellmann and O'Clair, 135). With this line, he is saying that these people have given up hope that they will ever be happy in their hectic, strife-filled, material worlds. They are now turning to God in order to find some sense of peace and fulfillment in their lives. The

In many literary works or in the world around us, ancient mythology is alluded to in order to give a moral lesson. For instance, the story of the sirens from The Odyssey is used to show the dangers of temptation. Sailors pass though the land of the sirens to get to their destination but instead get stopped by the song from the lurking sirens. The unavoidable song often causes sailors to jump to their death. In the painting Ulysses and the Sirens, John William Waterhouse uses the myth of Odysseus and the Sirens to demonstrate the idea that temptation can have serious consequences without the assistance from others, while in her poem “Siren Song” Margaret Atwood uses the same scene to illustrate the claim that deception from a strong source be

The influential feminine strain in the Odyssey also has important effects upon the whole flavor of the poem. Many other early epics are characterized by coldness, morbidity, and brutality, caused by the subjects with which they deal. The virtues, such as courage and martial prowess, which are seen in the Iliad are impressive, but they are undistinguished and limited, for they exist in a world of mas-culine competition and warfare. It is only in the Odyssey, among early Greek works, that such familiar ideas as love, family loyalty, and devotion, and other such important ethical attitudes, are both illustrated and advocated. It is the presence of these unconscious moral lessons that makes the Odyssey so unique in its genre and produces its humanitarian and optimistic outlook.

Rituals, teachings, ceremonies and identities of the Aboriginal people were lost and neglected in the past. Even today, those of the culture continue to heal and strengthen from the consequences. In Louise Halfe’s poem “My Ledders,” a native woman addresses the Pope expressing her passionate feelings towards the traditions that were robbed of her culture, while pleading him to change the teachings back to the original way. In the letter the speaker writes as if she was speaking, using phonetic spelling and broken English, asking the Pope if he could use his power to retain the native culture, as the government may listen to him. Directly linking the losses of native traditions, customs and languages to the residential school system,

The characters in Greek Mythology have multiple interpretations. Among these characters include the dangerous, yet gorgeous Sirens, bird-women who sit on a cliff singing bewitching songs that captivate the minds of innocent travelers and entice them to their deaths. In Homer’s The Odyssey and Margaret Atwood’s “Siren Song,” both poets provide different representations of the Sirens. Homer portrays the Sirens as irresistible in order to establish men as heroes, whereas Atwood depicts them as unsightly and pathetic so she can prove men are foolish and arrogant using imagery, diction, and point of view.

As a part of Greek mythology, sirens have made their way into many forms of literature throughout history. They seem to always follow a given template for a seductive, tempting creature whose only purpose is to lure men to their doom. In the two given poems, however, Homer and Margaret Atwood use a variety of devices to present very different portrayals of the mythological sirens. From the beginning of the excerpt of Homer’s epic Odyssey, a very masculine tone is presented through Odysseus’s first-person narration.

Writers during the time of the Greek Miracle painted a picture of a world consisting of men with invincible strength- yet a family and a home life. Their gods and goddesses took the shape of conventional human beings. Although much of literature has evolved since this time, the wild and spectacularly creative

According to Greek mythology, women were a necessary evil (63). In the male dominated culture, the women risk the essence of their life from the surprise tactic of withholding sex from their male partners. The women turn the men?s manhood into a weapon to help fight their cause and become disobedient to their mates. It is apparent sex is a powerful tool for both men and women in the play. By uniting, the women could create a cultural change because they had the will and desire to become a voice. ?A single voice becomes a crescendo when it arises in unison with others? (Huffington Post, 2009).

The story of Leda and the swan is mentioned very little in classical mythology based on Edith Hamilton’s book. However, the story is so famous and influential that many artworks referring to the story are created. In this video, some famous examples of art piece, along with the

“Leda and the Swan” by William Butler Yeats was inspired by the story from Greek Mythology, in which the daughter of King Thestius, Leda, is raped by Zeus, Father of the Gods. Yeats mixes the epic tale with his original approach, thus aspiring to question mythology.

In the poem “Leda and the Swan” by William B. Yeats, many connections to historical events, mythology, and biblical themes are presented. A few such connections that are highly analyzed and debated by critics are the connections and allusions to Greek history and mythology that occur in the poem — including the nature of the sexual act committed — and parallels to Christianity, such as the Holy Spirit visiting Mary: the two subjects connected by Yeats’s own theories on history and the passage of time.

Zeus constantly seemed to enjoy his abuse of power through the bedding of several mortal women during his reign, Leda being one of the many to fall prey to his sensual desires. Yeats signifies the role of sex in this poem in the first line, represented through the “beating” of the swan’s “great wings”. The rhythm of a bird’s beating wing mimics that of the rhythm of sexual intercourse, while the wings can be seen as a phallic symbol. Also, throughout the poem almost all the lines hold a steady syllable count of 10, which simulates the steady pace of sex. Yeats does not use the rhythm of the poem to create a sexual build up, however, but rather the diction itself, as during the first stanza the girl’s “thighs [are] caressed”, and then throughout the second stanza her submission begins to magnify as her “loosening thighs” are unable to “push the feathered glory” away from her, and then begins to climax by the third stanza as a “shudder in the loins engenders” – the same stanza that shares the climactic consequences of the Trojan War. Yeats chose this method of portrayal to inform the reader that when looking at the situation holistically, with the consideration of magical realism in mind, it may have seemed calm and steady, but when focused on in detail, it was far less collected, and signified a build up of death and