Context
This poem can be seen in reference to The Second Coming; it describes a moment that represented a change of era in Yeats’ model of gyres. But where Yeats’ poem The Second Coming represents the end of modern history, Leda and the Swan represents something like its beginning; the rape of Leda by Zeus resulted in the birth/hatching of Clytemnestra, Helen, Castro and Polydeuces (Castor and Polydeuces were war gods) and this brought about the Trojan War which in turn brought about the end of the ancient mythological era and the birth of modern history.
Yeats combines words indicating powerful action (sudden blow, beating, staggering, beating, shudder, mastered, burning, mastered) with adjectives and descriptive words that indicate Leda’s weakness and helplessness (caressed, helpless, terrifies, vague, loosening) thus increasing the sensory impact of the poem.
Structure
This poem is written as a classical Petrarchan sonnet – 14 lines of iambic pentameter, an 8 line octave followed by a 6 line sestet; the dividing line is the moment of ejaculation.
The poem opens with ‘a sudden blow’; this has an immediate impact in the poem. There is no gentle introduction; the reader is thrust right into the action. ‘[G]reat wings beating’ gives a sense of the size and the power of the swan. The phrase ‘the staggering girl’ gives...
