Leda and the Swan - Questions and answers (5 Marks)

Leda and the Swan

W.B. Yeats

1. What is an Annunciation? How does this relate to the theme of Leda and the Swan?

Answer: Annunciation, also proclaimed as the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Lord, in Christianity, the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive a son named Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1: 26–38). The angel's proclamation is with Mary's consent ("I am here, servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word"), and thus the incarnation of Christ and his deliverance from the earth came to an end.

"Leda and the Swan" are multiple “Annunciation” poems by Yes. In fact, the original version of the poem, published in 1924, is called the “Annunciation ". In the Christian tradition, the Annunciation is that the spiritual Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that he would have a child by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended on Mary and fulfilled the angel's words. The result of this union between God and man was Jesus Christ, whose birth signaled the destruction of an old discipline and ushered in a new era and Christian civilization. In "Leda and the Swan", Yates describes a different kind of proclamation, such as the god Zeus, descending on leather in the form of a bird and conceiving him with Helen, who will destroy Greek civilization and usher in a new modern age. Yates thus sees leather rape by Zeus as parallel to the proclamation of the Virgin Mary. Mary and Leather kids changed the world and the moment of their conception is an important moment for the universe. For the Yates, the proclamation is a moment in which the supernatural power of a God merged with man to revive a declining civilization.

“Leda and the Swan” contains other Annunciation poems by Yes, such as “The Maggie,” “Two Songs in a Game,” “The Mother of God,” and “The Second Coming,” as well as the violence and terror of God and man. Yates points out that any union between human and heaven can certainly be a horrible experience. However, he thinks that there is a possibility that mortals may acquire supernatural or short-sightedness at this moment of reunion. Thus at the end of the poem the speaker asks whether he has somehow acquired heavenly wisdom and heavenly power through his experience, as Leda has mastered by the “brute blood of the air”.

2. What is the underlying theme of “Leda and the Swan”?

Answer: "Leda and the Swan" is written in the style of the Petrarchan sonnet. The first eight lines (octaves) describe an event and the last six lines (sestet) solve the verb. Yeats never mentions Zeus or Leather in the poem so he relies on the reader to know the story. God, Zeus, raped (or persuaded) a mortal man named Leda in the form of a swan. As a result, Helen, Clytemnestra, Castor, and Pollax were born. These are all key players and / or literary characters who took part in the Trojan War and the early transition to the end of Greek civilization and the birth of a more modern era. The poem centers on a particular event, setting Lead's rape and ideas against the backdrop of a larger historical transformation. There is a question about Lead's chastity of how much Leda is aware of the significance of her part in this larger historical moment. A very important theme of this book of poems is the theory of history.

The brutality of the event implies that people are subject to a kind of cosmic (or mythical) power of history, even though they have relatively free will. And the other thing involved is that, cosmic or man-made, historical shifts can be violent. A historical connection to the poem, although not indicated in the poem, is the Irish Civil War. Yates supported the Free State of Ireland but did not like the violence that resulted from this freedom struggle.

The previous version of the poem was called "The Declaration". Explicit reference to the proclamation of Christianity When the angel Mary, Gabriel, met him, he said that he would give birth to the Son of God. The Holy Spirit (in the form of a dove) has fulfilled this prophecy. One union between humanity and God would be terrible and it would seem more to God than mortal. Conflicts of civilization, culture or ideas will also be turbulent; Historical transformations were often similarly turbulent.

In Annunciation and Leda's story, lineage has brought a new era of history to the world. Yates believes in the cyclical periods of history. He thought dramatic changes would occur every two thousand years. During such dramatic changes, things will get frustrating, turbulent and possibly violent. This poem symbolizes Yeats's theory of history as it can be understood in natural (physical) and spiritual aspects.

The octave (first 8 lines) of the poem describes leather rape / seduction. The law does not make Yeats shine for violence. Thus, he notes that violence occurs in historical transformations, but he condemns violence dramatically, at least because of its manifestation of the violence of humanity. He concludes the poem with the question of whether Leda (or any historical moment captured) can understand the significance of the event:

3. How does “Leda and the Swan” as a perfect demonstration image mean when people who hate poetry complain about poetry and become examples of the greatness of poetry?

Answer: "Leda and the Swan" is widely regarded as a masterpiece, one of Yates' greatest successes and verse signature work that helps define his canon. Word preferences are easily understood in layers and do not make any great experimental jumps in form or structure. Even the narratives themselves are relatively easy to follow: some feathery winged creatures - according to the title, a swan attacks an unguarded woman and violates her. And yet, in reality, the poem will remain a complete mystery to anyone unfamiliar with Greek mythology and history. Without the title the poem gives no indication that the bird in question is a swan and then an important, but worrying little truth that the swan is not actually a swan, but a swan poem in the form of the Greek god Zeus is actually a reconsideration of Greek mythology was, but there is no mention of Helen. The only name actually given to the body of the poem is Agamemnon, another famous figure in Greek historical fiction, and his presence does not apply to any context in which the story is not really familiar. In other words, “Leda and the Swan” is a poem that is not about what actually happens, but it is not possible to know until one is already aware of what it is. This is one of the reasons why those who say they don’t read poetry give reasons to hate. Coincidentally, people who dislike poetry may find exactly the same flaws in Yeats’s verse for those who like poetry an essential element of its greatness.

4. What is the dual level of embarrassment associated with the swan and how does it reflect the satirical tone of the poem?

Answer: Zeus' actions as a swan continue to be in direct opposition to the swan's symbolic ideals. Calling a woman a “swan-like neck” is considered elegant and elegant. The boats that people float in shallow water are made in the shape of swans because they are seen as representations of beauty and contribute to the serenity determined by such a park. This image of a swan is thus embarrassing and surprising in the headline of a bird's violent attack against a woman. And yet, that image of the swan is not entirely accurate and is indebted to poets more than to nature. Swans are considered highly aggressive birds when they feel threatened, although aggression is essentially a shameful display that uses their long wings to intimidate rather than injure. Zeus's murmur of raping against leather takes the form of a swan's double-edged sword, creating a wide range of poetic quirks. It is ironic that the provocation of the next cycle of civilization requires incomplete treatment of rape. It's ridiculous that Zeus' daughter conceived in sin - this image will be at the center of Troy of Helen's future, dominated by Greek mythology, and, of course, without saying that the most powerful of all the gods of the Greek vanguard is an ordinary mortal woman, Leda on her way. He went in disguise of a swan to go.

5. What is unusual about the poetic form that Yates uses to tell this story?

Answer: "Leda and the Swan" - a Petrarchan sonnet - although an idiosyncratic one Petrarchan sonnet established the first half of the convention a question has been resolved in half of the proposals. Over time, sonnets became the preferred poetic form for composing romantic verses. The most famous work outside of his plays by Shakespeare, for example, 154 sonnets famously directs the deeply romantic verse to two different mysterious personalities. In addition to the satirical elements described above, the single most satirical element of this poem is Yeats's decision to use the sonnet form to symbolize clearly the concept of violent rape capable of creating a context or romantic ambiguity. Earlier versions of the encounter often included ambiguity about whether Zeus had been raped or had rough sexual consent agreed to by both participants, leaving Yates to explain. It is also unequivocally ironic that Zeus's determination of the uniquely defiled state of Leda within the quite poetic framework of Romanticism seems to have closed the door on the question of whether this confrontation was one of mutual consent. Leda’s violation by Zeus is a thematic requirement and the ironic distance between form and content must be considered in that context.

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