Allusions In Leda
Allusion: To make a casual or an indirect reference to something.
Example: “ A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.” and basically the whole sonnet.
Yeats, W. B. (n.d.). William Butler Yeats. Retrieved from http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/865/ (Originally work published 1928)
Function: The entire sonnet is an allusion to the creation of the trojan war, which eventually led to the death of the king “Agamemnon”. To understand this sonnet you need to recognize that this sonnet is describing Zeus who originates from the greek mythology. The “swan” is referring to Zeus; in the first eight lines of the sonnet Leda describes the state of being raped by Zeus and this unpleasant action resulted in the birth of a children that eventually start the trojan war which leads to the death of “Agamemnon” after the victory.
In the first eight lines of the sonnet,Leda is being abused and ravished; this is written in her perspective to demonstrate her feeling on how helpless and trapped she is. Leda cannot escape from his “Sudden blow” and is being “caressed By [his] dark webs,” At the beginning she doesn’t know who this person is and only the reader does because Zeus is considered the king of gods and therefore has the power to …show more content…
The result of the pregnancy results in the birth of Helen of Troy, the woman over whom the Trojan War will be fought over. This raises certain questions about Zeus’ true intentions on why he did what he did. Without knowing the results he was the one who caused this great war. Did he want to in the first place? Did he already know the result of this rape? “Did she put on his knowledge with his power[?]” all these question are rhetorical but nevertheless the trojan war was the result of the rape and this changes who Leda is during her
Example: “ A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.” and basically the whole sonnet.
Yeats, W. B. (n.d.). William Butler Yeats. Retrieved from http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/865/ (Originally work published 1928)
Function: The entire sonnet is an allusion to the creation of the trojan war, which eventually led to the death of the king “Agamemnon”. To understand this sonnet you need to recognize that this sonnet is describing Zeus who originates from the greek mythology. The “swan” is referring to Zeus; in the first eight lines of the sonnet Leda describes the state of being raped by Zeus and this unpleasant action resulted in the birth of a children that eventually start the trojan war which leads to the death of “Agamemnon” after the victory.
In the first eight lines of the sonnet,Leda is being abused and ravished; this is written in her perspective to demonstrate her feeling on how helpless and trapped she is. Leda cannot escape from his “Sudden blow” and is being “caressed By [his] dark webs,” At the beginning she doesn’t know who this person is and only the reader does because Zeus is considered the king of gods and therefore has the power to …show more content…
The result of the pregnancy results in the birth of Helen of Troy, the woman over whom the Trojan War will be fought over. This raises certain questions about Zeus’ true intentions on why he did what he did. Without knowing the results he was the one who caused this great war. Did he want to in the first place? Did he already know the result of this rape? “Did she put on his knowledge with his power[?]” all these question are rhetorical but nevertheless the trojan war was the result of the rape and this changes who Leda is during her