Leda and the Swan

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1924

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

“Leda and the Swan” is an adaptation of a Classical Greek myth, which has remained a popular theme for artists and writers alike over many centuries since antiquity. In Greek mythology, Leda is the Queen of Sparta, a powerful Greek city-state. Stricken by her beauty, Zeus, the king of the gods, decides to have sex with her. He disguises himself in the form of a swan in order to approach her without being detected. The following encounter has been variously interpreted by different artists and authors: Some depict the encounter as a seduction, while others—such as Yeats in “Leda and the Swan”— depict it as an act of rape. Their sexual consummation results in a pregnancy, with Leda giving birth to a daughter, Helen.

As someone partially divine, Helen grows up to have extraordinary beauty. During a visit to Sparta, a Trojan prince named Paris sees Helen while visiting with her husband, King Menelaus, and falls in love with her. In some versions of the myth, Paris abducts Helen against her will, but in most versions of the myth, she falls in love with him and goes willingly with him to Troy. Her act of infidelity and Paris’s betrayal of friendship enrages Menelaus, who recruits his brother, King Agamemnon, and other Greek kings to wage war against Troy. After 10 years of siege, the city of Troy falls to the Greeks. Menelaus retrieves Helen and takes her back to Sparta, while Agamemnon is murdered by his unfaithful wife upon his return home.

Authorial Context

Yeats’s poetry is deeply influenced by both Irish and Classical mythology, which he draws upon both implicitly and explicitly in many of his major works. “Leda and the Swan” epitomizes this Classical influence, as his sonnet offers his own interpretation of the encounter between Leda and Zeus.

Since Leda is the mother of Helen of Troy, she holds a special appeal for Yeats, as Helen of Troy haunts his work frequently in other ways. She appears directly in poems such as “When Helen Lived,” and in some of his more autobiographical love poems, such as “No Second Troy,” in which he equates the figure of Maud Gonne with Helen of Troy while reflecting upon his unrequited love for her (See: Further Reading & Resources). In the poem “The Tower,” a work from his later years, he again invokes the figure of Helen and the Classical Greek influence upon his own artistry more generally (See: Further Reading & Resources). While Classical themes and influences are a marked feature of many poets, Yeats’s engagement with such material was both consistent and lifelong, lending occasional thematic continuity between his earlier and his mature works.