Leda and the SwanStarter: Watch this war footage. As you watch, imagine that you are an author/poet living within this ‘war

zone’….what would you think, write, do?

Write a piece of writing that reflects your thoughts/feelings/views

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbbpJxEt5WE

Leda and the SwanBackground• Written during the Irish Civil War• Modernist Poem (concerned with the

relationship between man and his environment and the environment and the man)

• Form is that of Petrarchan sonnet (14 lines into two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet)

• Retelling of a story from Greek mythology• Leda, is raped by the God Zeus• In the story Zeus has taken the form of a swan.• Born of this rape is Helen of Troy. Her

abduction years later leads to the whose abduction years later leads to the Trojan War.

• Trojan War—long, destructive, lead to the destruction of early Greek civilisation and the beginning of a new era.

Petrarchan Sonnet• The octave and sestet have special functions in a Petrarchan sonnet.• The octave's purpose is to introduce a problem, express a desire, reflect

on reality, or otherwise present a situation that causes doubt or a conflict within the speaker's soul and inside an animal and object in the story .

• It usually does this by introducing the problem within its first quatrain (unified four-line section) and developing it in the second.

• The beginning of the sestet is known as the volta, and it introduces a pronounced change in tone in the sonnet; the change in rhyme scheme marks the turn.

• The sestet's purpose as a whole is to make a comment on the problem or to apply a solution to it.

• The pair are separate but usually used to reinforce a unified argument - they are often compared to two strands of thought organically converging into one argument, rather than a mechanical deduction.

Language

• How is a violent tone created?

Look at:Plosives (short, harsh sounds)?Imagery?Verbs?

Form and Structure

How is violence conveyed in the first stanza (quatrain)?Look at:Language?Lack of Connectives?Caesura?Use of Enjambment?

Language

• There is a wealth of juxtapositions in this poem. How is the juxtaposition between power/strength and weakness/helplessness portrayed?

• What does this suggest about the ‘relationship’ between the swan and Leda?

Question

• Some critics argue that this poem represents Ireland’s metaphorical rape by the English. How far do you agree with this view? What evidence supports your view?