Another far more nebulous symbolic level, however, Leda is also a metaphor for Ireland under the yoke of British oppression. Leda exists more literally than Zeus by virtue of being named though she would still be a mystery to anyone not aware of her rape by Zeus. It gets even more complicated: swans are a favorite animal for Yeats to work into his verse as a symbol of inscrutable passion and desire.
Unless one is familiar with the story of Zeus transforming into a swan to rape Leda, Helen’s mother, it would likely be not just impossible to determine that the swan is a symbol of Zeus but that the bird is even a swan. Into that mythology was written the story of the conception of the woman who would become known as Helen of Troy. To fully grasp this poem, it is of tremendous help to be acquainted with some knowledge of ancient Greek mythology. The bird described in the narrative is never actually identified as a swan. The “broken wall” and the “burning roof” may be somewhat less obvious as metaphorical language for the vagina. The reference to “tower” should be a familiar enough phallic symbol that it is probably the least likely to miss interpretation. Because it is not intended to be pornographic or literal in any other senses, figurative language is adopted as substitutions for coarser language that would be more readily understandable. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.Īlthough it may not seem like it to readers unfamiliar with symbolic language, the poem is actually quite explicit in its description of a sexual assault. However, the poem doubts that Leda had the omniscience to understand what would follow from that moment.These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. The poem thus uses Leda to explore questions of free will and human agency, depicting her rape as a moment she also possessed the god’s “power” (13) to bring about such historically consequential events.
The Trojan War represented one such turning point to Yeats. The poem refers to Yeats’s theory of history, which he saw as a series of cycles that move towards violent turning points. This union conceives Helen, whose beauty provokes the Trojan War. The poem is based on a story from Greek myth, in which the Greek god Zeus takes the form of a swan in order to rape the Spartan Queen Leda. Its final version appeared in 1928, in his collection The Tower. However, Yeats revised the poem several times. It was originally published in The Dial in June, 1924, and was included that year in a collection of poetry by Yeats entitled The Cat and the Moon and Certain Poems. “Leda and the Swan” is a 14-line Petrarchan Sonnet written by William Butler Yeats.
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