Leda and the Swan

“Leda and the Swan” loosely follows the Italian (or “Petrarchan”) sonnet form in terms of its rhyme scheme: Its first two stanzas are divided into four lines each and follow an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme, while the final stanza is made up of six lines (known as a “sestet” in Italian sonnets) with an EFGEFG rhyme scheme. There is a deliberately disruptive—and thematically significant—line break in Line 11 (“And Agamemnon dead / Being so caught up”) that fractures what should be a single line across two lines, shifting the poem from a sonnet’s traditional length of 14 lines into one that is 15 lines. This sudden line break is significant because it shifts the poem’s focus away from the future events of the Trojan War and its aftermath (“And Agamemnon dead” [Line 11]) back to the scene of Leda’s rape (“Being so caught up” [Line 12]), once more linking the violence that is to come with the violence that is presently taking place.

Furthermore, Yeats’s choice of the sonnet form is significant because sonnets are traditionally associated with love poetry. In using the sonnet form to depict an act of sexual violence, Yeats lends

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