Yeats poem, Leda and the Swan

Yeats poem , Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan The background of Yeats ' poem "Leda and the Swan " is both intricate and central to the development of Yeats ' poetic vision and his poetic voice Although the original impetus for the poem 's composition , according to Yeats , was political , the poem as it evolved to completion concerns itself much more with myth and the human religious impulse than with overt political themes . However , a political interpretation of the poem specifically one which takes as its departure point , the evident gender-specific themes

and symbolic building-blocks of Yeats ' theme in the poem , can be readily extrapolated and provides an insight into the potential strengths and weaknesses of the poem 's theme and composition

The persistent political ramifications of the poem , as mentioned , began originally as Yeats ' response to a poem-by-request "I wrote Leda and the Swan because the editor of a political review asked me for a poem (Melchiori 77 ) and Yeats ' original vision for the poem was to create a work which refuted the "individualist , demagogic movement , founded by Hobbes and popularized by the Encyclopaedists and the French Revolution (Melchiori 77 ) and which sought to re-ignite a "birth from above preceded by some violent annunciation (Melchiori 77 . Although Yeats wandered considerably far from his original conception , the final version of "Leda and the Swan " retains both of the key ideas of the original inspiration : a general theme of rebirth , and a theme of 'violent annunciation ' The first theme became less...