Yeats, Lada and the Swan Flashcards
‘A sudden blow:..’
Identify a literary device
‘A sudden blow: the great wings beating still / Above the staggering girl’
Line 1-2
‘Beating still’ - ambiguous. Oxymoronic, wings beating still. Perhaps conveys Leda’s confusion at the attack
P.149
‘Her thighs caressed…’
‘Her thighs caressed / By the dark webs’
Line 2-3
‘He holds her helpless…’
‘He holds her helpless breast upon his breast’
Line 4
‘How can those terrified vague…’
‘How can those terrified vague fingers push / The feathered glory form her loosening thighs’
Line 5-6
‘Laid in that…’
‘Laid in that white rush’
Line 7
‘Rush’
‘A shudder in the lions engenders there…’
‘A shudder in the lions engenders there / The broken wall, the burning roof and tower and Agamemnon dead’
Line 10 - 11
‘Shudder in the lion’ - ejaculation
‘The broken wall’ - Fall of Troy
‘Agamemnon dead’ - Agamemnon, Greek god of war. Product of Zeus’ rape of Leda
Death of Agamemnon is the last line of first octave, immediately preceding the sestet. Larger symbolism at play?
What was the original draft title for Leda and the Swan?
Why is this of significance?
The annunciation
- ‘annunciation’ refers to the biblical idea that the birth of Christ was prefigured
Yeats drawing on the antithetical, though parallel biblical idea of divine conception, Virgin Mary and birth of Christ. Yeats prefiguring the christian myth of divine conception as a violent act of sexual aggression
What is the rhyme scheme of the first two quatrains?
What kind of sonnet usually follows this form?
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
Shakespearean sonnet
What is the rhyme scheme of the sestet?
What kind of sonnet is this?
E
F
G
E
F
G
Petrarchan sonnet
What can be said about the eleventh line?
‘And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up’
*The eleventh line appears to slashed in two, hanging over the remaining three lines like Leda in the ‘indifferent beak’
