Leda And The Swan

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On the surface, they appear tranquil and docile, yet their physical attributes are only a facade for their truly mean spirit. Swans are rather territorial animals who tend to be quite nasty when confronted with an undesirable situation. In “,” the beauty of the swan is skin-deep as well. Despite having the glorious physical attributes of a swan he is also a vicious brute who acts out his male animalistic power over his female prey, demonstrating the raw male and female relationships in nature. Swan are huge birds, and as pointed out in the Internet site “The Swan and Leda” (a poem on the same subject as “”) “Swans, unlike most birds, have external genitals” (1). Thus, the swan is a perfect animal for such a hideous crime as Zeus performs on Leda.
In further developing the underlying repercussion theme, the basis of the poem must be analyzed. In Greek Mythology, Zeus disguises himself as a swan in order to lure the pure and ...

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with mere description of the scene and events themselves” (3716). Yeats fuses the myth and the potent language together in a sonnet of intense proportions. In Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, R.P. Blackmur says, “’’ gives us the nearly perfect example of the fusion of mythology and system and intuitive assertion so dramatized in crises as to provide an inexhaustible system in contemplation without loss of intensity” (397). The poem’s oppositions inherent in the swan and Leda divulge its significance.
Yeats incorporates contradictions of beauty and malice to show that beauty can serve as a mask for evil. The swan, though glorious in its ...

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