Leda and the Swan states two main charaters and doesn’t refer to the main event whatsoever. Leda and the swan refer to two characters and leaves the reader wondering what was the relationship that emerged and took place. Because the title doesn’t mention the rape, it brings out that a situation existed, but doesn’t put emphisis on the fact that the horrific act was invloved. The significance that the poem, even though it descibes the rape, more analyzes the relationship between Leda and the Swan

In the first stanza of the poem, Yeats immediately brings the reader to the moment of supreme horror and doesn’t hesitate to let the reader know what is happening: a sudden blow, great wings beatin

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

In the second stanza Yeats describes in these four lines how terrified Leda feels when she is smothered by this “feathered glory.” But Yeats makes the reader think what is really happening. Is she terrified of being raped, or terrified that she might like what is happening? “How can those terrified vague fingers push the feathered glory from her loosening thighs?” Zues is described as a “feathered glory.” How can a mortal, like Leda, stop a God like Zues from doing this? Would every woman act as Leda did or would they try and stop him? Yeats describes her thighs “loosening” to the swan. Almost as if she is giving up, there is nothing that she can do. In the third and fourth line of the second stanza Leda was questioned. “How can body, laid in that white rush, but feel the strange heart beating where it lies?” I think that she was not in the right mind at this time. “This happened so fast that not only was she terrified but not paying attention to the big picture (rape) but instead feeling his heart beat” (Levine, 254). This was very strange to her that she was not paying attention to anything else.

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

How can those terrified vague fingers push

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

Some topics in this essay:
Leda Swan, God Zues, Clytemnestra Agamemnon’s, Butler Yeats’, Butler Yeats, Trojan War, Nobel Prize, Dublin Ireland, leda swan, stanza describes, william butler, William Butler, Reviews Agamemnon, girl thighs caressed, sudden blow wings, nape caught, dark webs, thighs caressed, caressed dark, helpless breast, holds helpless, blow wings beating, beating staggering girl, girl thighs, staggering girl thighs,