Blog Entry 11: Yeats's "Leda and the Swan"

William Butler Yeats's "Leda and the Swan" tells the story of the Greek god Zeus raping Leda, a rape that produced daughter Helen, whose abduction sparked the Trojan War. The poem is three stanzas long, with a line break in the middle of the third stanza. It's mostly iambic pentameter with some irregularity.

When I read this poem, I think about Yeats in love with Maud Gonne, who never returned his affection. In the context of this poem, I think that Maud is Yeats's lost Helen, and he blames her for not loving him. Yeats's dissatisfaction with Maud seems to extend to all women, who are at least partly responsible for the tragedies in their lives. In the case of Leda, the persona indicates Leda is "helpless" during the rape but then asks two questions:

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? (lines 5-8)

The first question seems almost rhetorical, that Leda had no power to push Zeus away, yet the fact that the question is a question seems to suggest that she might have tried. The second question makes Leda more culpable by wondering how any object of passion could avoid feeling that passion, "the strange heart." In this way, Yeats suggests that Leda is partly responsible for the rape, blaming the victim, which I attribute to his negative attitude toward Maud. It's as if he asks, aren't all women slaves to their emotions?

The last stanza attributes even more destructive a force to women through Helen. The lines indicate that the passion of this moment created Helen and thereby spawned the destruction of Troy:

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead. (lines 9-10)

These images are understatements: the whole city of Troy was destroyed, not just a wall, roof, and tower, and plenty more people than Agamemnon died. The understatement seems to mourn these losses, even though Agamemnon killed his own daughter, Iphigenia, in order to get favorable winds to carry his army to Troy. Yet, Yeats feels for the loss of Agamemnon in a way he does not feel for the rape of Leda. The line break in the middle of line 10 seems to emphasize the losses associated with Troy as painful tragedy engendering a moment of silence.

The second to last line again points to women as the cause of disaster: "Did she put on his knowledge with his power" (line 11). The question, again, seems rhetorical, in this case suggesting that, yes, Leda did assume god-like knowledge, plotting the destruction of Troy at the moment of Helen's conception, and that women altogether, including Maud Gonne, have that knowledge and wield it to the disadvantage of men.

I really like this poem. It's beautiful. Knowing Yeats's background creates complex undercurrents for me that weave additional meaning throughout. The poem also makes me angry at Yeats: poor baby! Maud doesn't love you. Get over it. Eventually, Yeats would get over Maud, marrying Georgie Hyde-Lees, a woman half his age, who engaged in his creative efforts in a devoted way Maud Gonne would never have done. Maybe women aren't quite as dangerous if they stand by their men?