Sex and love

Running head : Sex and Love

Sex and Love in Modern Poetry

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Sex and Love in Modern Poetry Each generation seems to act as if they are the first generation to experience love and sex . It is as if they cannot conceive of an previous generating engaging in and enjoying both love and sex , particularly when they think of their parents or grandparents . However , in Modern Poems : A Norton Introduction , Editors Ellman and O 'Clair provide ample evidence this isn 't so . Poems written

throughout their parent 's and grandparents lives indicate what a powerful , pervasive emotion love is . Throughout this book is a wide variety of poems treating both love and sex in many diverse ways . This explores a few of them

Leda and the Swan

By

William Butler Yeats

Leda and the Swan by William Butler Yeats (Ellman , 1989 , 85-86 ) is a short poem published in 1924 that rehearses the story of the rape of Leda , the mother of Helen of Troy , by Zeus , leader of the Greek gods while disguised as a swan . The event described is a precursor to the Trojan War described in Homer 's The Iliad

Yeats wrote this poem in blank verse . The first two stanzas are regular with a rhyme scheme of A-B-A-B . However , with the third stanza , he chose to write six lines (or seven if one chooses to split the line "And Agamemnon dead . Being so caught up . The rhymes here are in an A-B-C format with a near rhyme between "up " and "drop

The tone of the poem is surprisingly light considering the magnitude of the graphic images of the rape and the consequences resulting from the rape . The blank verse Yeats used is almost comforting with its familiar iambic pentameter , like a heart beating

However the images are dark vivid , and threatening . Leda was unable to defend herself from the "sudden blow " as the swan attacked Leda from above and out of nowhere . The swan 's powerful wings hold Leda to its breast while caressing her thighs with its dark webbed feet . The swan 's powerful bill grabbing her by the nape of the neck in a very bestial performance of the sexual act . Leda was powerless to push the swan from her thighs as Zeus pleasured himself . In a final thrust of the loins the swan 's orgasm seals the fate that will be the Trojan war with the sacking of Troy and the death of Agamemnon , the leader of the Greek army

In the final stanza , the speaker wonders if during the brief moment of copulation , Leda was able to make use of Zeus ' diving power to know the future . He wonders if she knows the consequences of this attack that Zeus made . The question is left to the imagination and thoughts of the reader

Gloire de Dijon

by

D . H . Lawrence

In Gloire de Dijon , D . H . Lawrence writes of a moment of voyeurism the speaker experiences when...