Yeats’ Leda and the Swan and Van Duyn's Leda In Greek mythology, Leda, a Spartan queen, was so beautiful that Zeus, ruler of the gods, decided he must have her. Since immortals usually did not present themselves to humankind in their divine forms, Zeus changed himself into a great swan and in that shape ravished the helpless girl (Carey 58-59). Both William Butler Yeats and Mona Van Duyn base their poems "Leda and the Swan" and "Leda," respectively, on this story of a "mystic marriage
of Yeats’ most famous works, such as ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, ‘Long-legged Fly’ and ‘Easter 1916’, to name just a few, it is an aspect of his poetry which is relevant to almost all of his writing. However, it is in Yeats’ apocalyptic poems, ‘Leda and the Swan’ and ‘The Second Coming’ that this metaphor for the history of time is most explored. The poems relate the tales of two points in time that Yeats feels to be important turning points in history, epicenters of calamity and destruction, as the
that infant after he has lived through '"'sixty or more winters.'"' Would she, he wonders, think the result worth the pain of her labor and of all her coming anxieties over her helpless infant"'"s welfare? In the final three stanzas, the personal note that has pervaded the poem is dropped as the speaker explores in rapid order the breadth and scope of all human thought and endeavor—from Plato to Aristotle and Pythagoras, from nuns to mothers to youthful lovers—seeking some solace for the tragic
Many of these myths regarding sexual behavior include sexual relations with some sort of animal. An example of this is the story of Leda and the Swan. Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, a book by E.M. Berens, explains that Zeus came down in the form of a swan to consort with Leda (Berens 34). The result of this encounter was the birth of Helen and Pollux. Leda was one of the many mortal consorts of Zeus which gives an idea of how common this was in Greek mythology. Another example of bestiality
Wild Swans at Coole", for example, while still referring to legend, focuses on change and decay. The swans may allude to the myth of the Children of Lír, who were changed into swans and forced to remain in that form for nine hundred years. Another Irish fable is that of Baile and Aillinn, lovers who were also changed into swans. The swans, then, represent physical beauty, immortality, and continuity. The poet, "caught up in the gentle pain of personal memory, contrasts sharply with the swans which
dichotomy of the thinker and the actor. Yeats, in love with Maud Gonne, was the thinker, the courtly lover -- the one who would "brood upon love's bitter mystery." Yeats was Mr. Nice Guy. Yet Yeats wanted to be the actor - the alpha male - the Fergus. Note the sexualized subtext that permeates the poem, who will "pierce the deep wood's woven shade"? Who will "drive" with Fergus. Finally, we get the reasons to be the alpha male - the man of action, in the repetition of the word "rules." The alpha commands
revolutionary psychoanalytic study in which he argued that Leonardo was homosexual but celibate, and that he sublimated his erotic side into endless research. Freud pointed to a coldly clinical drawing of heterosexual intercourse among Leonardo 's notes, which shows the lovers standing up, like mannequins. It is conversely true that Leonardo drew many highly detailed studies of the anal sphincter. When he died, he left some works to Salai, while his more recent companion Francesco Melzi inherited