1. Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
INTENSIVE CLASS

2. Reading ABOUT Yeats's Poetry
Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
Reading ABOUT Yeats's Poetry

3. Reading About Yeats’s Poetry
The reading you will do about Yeats will generally fall into three categories:
Criticism
Includes elements of both analysis & evaluation.
Particularly helpful in assessing the textual integrity & “value” of Yeats’ work.
Analysis
Generally seen as more “technical”.
Can be helpful, as how techniques are interpreted will reflect how the written has “read” the text.
Commentary
Comments, annotations or explanations.

4. Reading About Yeats’s Poetry
Can help to clarify your own view on the poems.
May help you to find evidence for your own reading of the poems.
May challenge your view, and thus help you in being able to articulate your own opinion.
Offer alternative readings that you may not have thought of during your initial readings.
Can help you to understand how context can influence interpretations of poems.

5. Reading About Yeats’s Poetry
iTunes U
Podcasts.
Online
Podcasts & articles.
University databases
Libraries
Academic databases, journals& books.
Remember Shmoop, Spark Notes, Top Notes & York Notes are NOT literary analysis!

6. Reading About Yeats’s Poetry
Things to look for when evaluating a reading:
Well-known & respected writer or critic.
Creditable publication (preferably academic).
From a reputable establishment (university).
Investigate the context of the writer:
Particularly when the piece was written or presented.

7. Reading About Yeats’s Poetry
Some writers will be influenced by literary movements or theories:
Modernism
Post-colonialism
Feminism
Marxism
Be wary of people who overwhelmingly positive or negative about Yeats’s work:
May be influenced by personal sentiment & relationships

8. Reading About Yeats’s Poetry
Remember that the most important thing is your own personal perspective of each poem and Yeats’ work as a whole.
Readings should be used to inform your perspective and help support it:
Most of your evidence should come from the poetry itself.
In an assessment, readings should only be referred to briefly :
Their greatest value is in preparing you for assessment.
Be critical yourself of what you have read.

9. Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
Writing About Yeats

10. Writing About Yeats
There are two important concepts which are mentioned in the rubric that you must be familiar with:
Value
Textual Integrity
Many questions will require you to deal with one or both of these ideas.

11. Writing About Yeats
The value of a text is “to estimate or assign worth to (it); to consider something to have worth” (BoS, English Stage 6 Syllabus):
Specifically, why do we still read & study Yeats? What is it that we get from his poetry?
Universal themes are ones which we can all relate to, no matter what time or place we live in, as they are part of the “human experience”:
For example, love, loss, fear, change, desire, regret (the “big” stuff!)
Context becomes important, as how & why we value text changes over time:
Readings.

12. Writing About Yeats
You will need to consider each poem individually, and the body of work as a whole.
Your interpretation of the text needs to take into account ALL of a text; you can’t ignore those aspects that don’t fit with your ideas or reading.

13. Writing About Yeats
“the unity of a text; its coherent use of form and language to produce an integrated whole in terms of meaning and value” (BoS, English Stage 6 Syllabus):
Specifically, does Yeats’ poetry work as poetry to make meaning?
To determine textual integrity, consider:
Use of language
Structure
And the extent to which these produce a text which can be coherently understood in term of:
Meaning
Value

14. Writing About Yeats Specific & relevant textual reference:
For Yeats, you must quote.
You MUST address the question.
A strong thesis that is maintained through out the work.
Strong personal voice:
Have an opinion, articulate it & stick to it
Must be prepared to discuss ANY of the poems set for study.

15. Writing About Yeats
This module isn’t about context, the question will be about value & theme.
You must PLAN your work!
Need to start with a really strong thesis:
Don’t just react to the question.
Think about WHY Yeats discussed the personal.
Agreeing or disagreeing with the question is NOT a thesis!
It is ok to disagree with the question or statement.

16. Writing About Yeats ANALYSIS:
Always required, even if the question doesn’t specifically ask for it!
You must discuss the way techniques are used to convey meaning.
Personal response DOES NOT equal colloquial language:
Normal essay conventions must be adhered to in the exam.
Don’t provide “commentary” on the poems, as your reading of the poem should be provided in terms of the support you’re providing for your thesis:
Everything you say needs to be linked to your thesis rather just explaining the poems.

17. Writing About Yeats TIE Method: Technique Illustrate Explain
“The use of sibilance in the poem, “Mirrors a still sky”, creates a sense of tranquillity and relaxation for the reader.”
“Yeats utilizes euphony, “trees… autumn… woodlands… swans…”, to accentuate the serenity and peacefulness of the scene at the lake.”

18. Writing About Yeats
Addresses the question, and puts forward your own ideas:
Also looks at the idea of value which is implied.
Yeats’ poetry, while discussing personal events, is actually universal in its intent as he explores themes such as the inevitability of time’s passing that we relates to all of us.
While Yeats’ poetry can certainly be seen as personal, it is the ability to use highly personal events to comment on universal ideas such as love and loss which make Yeats’s work so enduring.

19. AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH
Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH

20. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
Textual Integrity
Elegy
Tight structure perfectly encloses the moment before death
Iambic tetrameter
Four quatrains
ABABCDCDEFEF rhyming scheme
Value
Yeats is demonstrating the same ambivalence that people feel when they do not understand the motives of others, especially if it ends in death
Themes are universal: death, life, loss, war
Symbolism
Air represents life, the airman’s life, his “breath”
Links
Easter 1916 as the airman parts from the “living stream”, the flow of life
Among School Children, “drank the wind”, a life without purpose lacks substance

21. Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
THE SECOND COMING

22. The Second Coming
The Second Coming was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the first World War. This version of the poem is as it was published in the edition of Michael Robartes and the Dancer dated 1920 (there are numerous other versions of the poem). The preface and notes in the book contain some philosophy attributed to Robartes.

23. The Second Coming
The title, The Second Coming, refers to Judeo-Christian prophecy in Bible’s last book, the Book of Revelation, that Jesus Christ will return to defeat the antichrist, overthrow evil and then establish his thousand year reign.

24. The Second Coming
Matthew 24 (ESV): “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

25. The Second Coming
Revelations 13:1-5 (ESV): “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marvelled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.”

26. The Second Coming
Revelations 20:1-5 (ESV): “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.”

27. The Second Coming
Yeats incorporates his own view of history and future through the image of the “gyres”, cone-shaped spirals that intersect so that each gyre’s narrowest point is contained inside the widest part of the other.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre”
Each circle equals 200 years of history.
Each new gyre (circle) brings about chaos and destruction of the old.
In 1921, Yeats thought that world is on the brink of the end!

28. The Second Coming
The gyres represent different elemental forces in the historical cycles, or different stages in the development of human psyche.

29. The Second Coming
Each gyre beginning in the purity of concentrated point and degenerating into chaos.
In his book A Vision, he describes the gyres as intersecting cones, one widening out while other focuses in to a single point. The passage between the gyres is a transition to a new world and not the end of the world.
The poem describes an apocalypse very different from the Christian vision of the end of the world.

30. The Second Coming
The poem starts with the image of a falcon wheeling about in the sky, far away from the falconer who released it.
The metaphor stands for the poet’s belief that the world he knew was coming to an end.

31. Loss of control and order
We are plunged directly into the poet’s vision – in media res
Links to his theory of cyclical patterns in history
gyre
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Falconry alludes to the Middle Ages and the strong influence of the Church in feudal society. Religious matters were more important than human affairs. Yeats ideology remained oligarchic: authoritarian and aristocratic.
The falcon is a metaphor for humanity and the falconer is a metaphor for Jesus. The order is breaking down, and anarchy is replacing order.
NEW
OLD
MAN
GOD
IMAGE FROM FALCONRY
Loss of control and order
Yeats may be referring to Bertrand Russell’s quote “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of self-doubt.”
Yeats uses the blank verse, along with metre and limited rhyme, to represent the decay of the society in the breakdown of the poetic form.

32. The Second Coming
The image of falcon moving away and away from the falconer (representing control or Jesus Christ) and turning the world upside down.
Image of apocalypse and encroaching disaster – the falcon cannot hear the call of safety and circles or spirals wider and wider.

33. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Anarchy may be an allusion to one of the biblical punishments, such as the Flood. This would definitely work in reference to the next couple of lines.
The word “Mere” means both pure and only, and the first section further emphasises the generality and absoluteness of the situation with words such as “everywhere” and “all”. The “Mere anarchy” which is loosed like a plague or scourge then becomes a tide dimmed by blood, recalling the bloody seas of the Revelation of St John, the flood from the mouth of the serpent and the vials of wrath (Rev 8:8; 12:15; 16:1-4).
As the spiral widens, as we move away from the centre, things get more and more out of control
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
oxymoron
The first three lines culminate in a statement that disorder, chaos and anarchy has been unleashed on the world – nothing lies at the centre to hold this together
It is unclear who the agent of this action is – some evil power or force

34. Worst people carry out their deeds with great vigour and enthusiasm
“The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.” Revelations 16:3 (ESV)
Allusion to the blood-filled seas of Revelation; the tide symbolises destroys hope
tide
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Lack of experience
Goodness
Vulnerability
Yeats appears to be alluding to Genesis 6-9 and Revelations 16:13
Best = intellectuals = head = think, do not act
People = mob = body = act, do not think
Worst people carry out their deeds with great vigour and enthusiasm
Interesting that poem was written shortly before WWII and that Yeats considered it prophetic!

35. The Second Coming
More chaos is presented in the images of seas full of blood and drowning; doubts and misguided principles are now guiding the world.
He pictures the society moving towards its self-destruction and chaos – purity and innocence giving way to wickedness.

36. Surely some revelation is at hand;
The phrase “The ceremony of innocence” is linked to a poem from later in 1919, A Prayer for my Daughter, where the poet asks, “How but in custom and ceremony / Are innocence and beauty born?”; here the phrase suggests a vague image of whatever the reader’s imagination summons which is then engulfed in the crimson of the multitudinous seas.
revolution
Call for salvation and redemption – a tone of desperation. The repetition of “surely” gives a more sinister tone to the persona. Something is coming, change is coming.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
Mankind has reached a point where only divine intervention can save him

37. Uncertainty = threatening
Yeats may be using “desert” to link a lot of his ideas together. First, in the Book of Exodus of the Old Testament, the Jews were slaves in Egypt. Second, Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan in the desert. Third, the Sphinx is both a creature of riddles and is monstrous in appearance. Lastly, Satan was often believed to have lived in the wilderness, waiting to lure good Christians away from God.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
Collective spirit of mankind – each human spirit is linked to a single, vast intelligence
Uncertainty = threatening
“Spiritus Mundi” is, translated directly, Latin for “spirit world”. This may be used to give the impression of occult or supernatural power, but it also taps into the idea of universal consciousness.

38. Uncertainty = threatening
This is Yeats’ new messiah – “a rough beast” – in his play The Resurrection he says: “I began to imagine around 1904 as always at my left side just out of range of sight, a brazen winged beast which I associated with laughing, ecstatic destruction… Afterwards described in my poem ‘The Second Coming’”. The poem also has significant links with Easter 1916 and Leda and the Swan.
Allusion to the Sphinx
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
Uncertainty = threatening
Mystic stare/trance – determination of cruel stupidity?
Simile
Image of thighs proceeding the fall of civilisation
1st bird image: Birds are frantic – have been frightened
2nd bird image: disturbed by the movement of the Sphinx
The allusion to the Sphinx can also act as a symbol for the end of the Judeo-Christian era. What has stood the test of time is now moving towards its own birth and heralding in a new gyre. The Sphinx is a work of art, moving and mutable.

39. The Second Coming
An image of a beast with the head and intellect of a man, and the fierce body and emotions of a beast.
Image is from Book of Revelation in the Bible: the lion is symbolic of predatory power, royal strength and authority – but is pitiless and devoid of love.

40. The darkness drops again; but now I know
Yeats uses an extended metaphor to represent the “twenty centuries” of sleep through “stony sleep”, “nightmare” and “rocking cradle”. The rocking cradle mimics the image of the manger of the Christ.
Loses sight of image or vision – begins to think again – now he is filled with dread.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
Twenty centuries since the birth of Christ – little progress has been made since – mankind has been asleep.
Yeats may be comparing Christianity to the stone (“the stone’s in the midst of all”) in the stream from Easter 1916.
Yeats may be using “stony” or stone as a symbol for permanence or something that endures. Sleep may be a metaphor for the complacency of humanity during this gyre. Yeats might also be using the continuity period of the Middle Ages to represent the strong religious connotations of the poem and the nature of that age.

41. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Bethlehem was the birthplace of Jesus Christ. The “rough beast” will also be born in the town, but it will give birth to a new age of uncertainty and anarchy. The beast’s birth at Bethlehem links it to the birth of Jesus, but Bethlehem is more a symbolic state than a geographical place.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Ugliness, slyness, clumsiness, laziness
Poem ends with a question mark. Is it a puzzle or riddle? Hints at an answer throughout, but it is never fully expressed. Yeats repeats this in Leda and the Swan.
Lumbers towards Bethlehem. Birthplace of Jesus; second messiah?
Yeats may have seen the polytheistic past laying in stasis during the cycle of monotheism, and that may relate to his System and the gyres. The monotheistic cycle, characterised by Christianity, might be replaced by the rebirth of its antithetical counterpart.

42. Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

43. The poem is set in Coole Park, County Galway at the home of Lady Gregory, who was a patron and friend of Yeats.
Yeats was 51 when he wrote this poem. He had first met Maud Gonne in 1889, aged 24, and proposed to her in 1891, 1894, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1908, asking her for the last time in 1916.
He first visited Coole Park in 1897, aged 32, having began a year long affair with Mrs Olivia Shakespear in He eventually married, in 1917, Georgie Hyde-Lees who was 26, but only after being rejected by Iseult Gonne, Maud’s daughter, earlier that year who was 23 at the time.

44. Yeats’s Women
Georgie Hyde-Lees
Olivia Shakespear
Maud Gonne
Iseult Gonne
Yeats said of his relationship with Gonne that he was “involved in a miserable love affair that had, but for one brief interruption, absorbed my thoughts for years past and would for some years yet.”

45. THE TREES are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry,
The fact that there are fifty-nine swans, suggests that one is alone. Unlike some of his poems, which deal directly with his unrequited love, by this time, Maude Gonne merely surfaces now and again as a mellow regret.
Tracks that many others have travelled. They are clear, not muddy.
Autumn beauty gold and red hues. A time of productivity before the onset of winter.
Focus begins straight away with nature
The sky mirrored in the lake firstly suggests the stillness of the day but implies poetically a union of the poet’s vision with his surroundings. The unity of the soul with aspirations is achieved by his surroundings if not by the poet.
The last light of the day/ faint light, shows the peacefulness of this time of transition in the day, but also reinforces the poet’s position in the poem. Twilight suggests a state of imperfect understanding.
THE TREES are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
Repetition of ‘water' reinforces idea of purity, innocence, cleansing.
Sibilance creates a sense of tranquillity and relaxation. Euphony (“trees… autumn… woodlands… swans”) also makes it pleasing to the ear.
Plentiful
Sounds old fashioned, but is also more rhythmical and musical. In Gaelic the tens are given first. The harmony of the language reflects the harmony of the scene.
In the first stanza, the clarity of description is evident in the use of short clear descriptions to create enormously vivid description. The poem is set in autumn and clearly represents the poet himself entering the autumn years of his life.

46. The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count;
Yeats examines his stay at Coole Park in County Galway, Ireland. He specifically focuses on the swans floating on the lake, and how they represent both memories of his youth and the pain of the passage of time.
This implies age is overpowering him, he seems surprised.
Yeats is measuring time in seasons, not years.
Yeats begins to paint himself into the picture by using first person, personal pronoun. The stillness of his counting is contrasted against the movement of the birds.
Suggests that the swans ‘ride' into the sky on their wings, the suddenness of a rider mounting a horse, no slow transition but an event completed in one action.
The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
Gives the swans a wild, untamed air. They are natural, unbridled. They are their own horsemen.
Uses the image of the circular path taken by the swans.
Making a loud and confused noise.
Word choice suggests that there is something incomplete.
In the second stanza, the concept of time is introduced. Our attention is focused on how actions and events can infiltrate what one might otherwise be focusing on at the time.

47. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
The consists of five 6-line stanzas and has a rhyme scheme of ABCBDD.
The nature imagery in the poem draws a very descriptive picture of life at the tranquil lake at Coole Park.
Could argue that hear we hear a trace of his loss of Maud Gonne who too was a beautiful creature, but there is more to the line than simply this.
Nineteen years have passed since his first visit as a young man to Coole in He was physically sick, homeless, and she took him in and gave him enough money and security to write.
Only line that ends in a full stop in the middle of the stanza. Adds weight to the line. Adds weight to how much pain he is in.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Repetition of ‘twilight’ may indicate time, and change in age.
The sound of the wings echoes the steps of the man and the connection between the young man’s footsteps and an older man’s heavy ‘tread' is clearly seen. Not only is he physically aging, but it appears he is ‘weighed down’ by his years.
Alliteration echoes the sound of the wings.
On one level he is simply talking about the beauty and majesty of the birds themselves and how they are changeless compared to his aging self.

48. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold,
Yeats contrasts the lives of the swans with his own life to demonstrate the passage of time and the changes that have occurred: “Unwearied still…their hearts have not grow old”.
The swans provide a direct contrast to the weariness and despondency of the poet. The swans appear eternal; of course, they are not the same swans as nineteen years ago, but they appear to be.
Reinforcing the ideas that “their hearts” alludes to, in more specific terms. These are the things Yeats feels he has lost. “Passion” and “conquest” reflect the driving forces which Yeats believed were essential to make a poet. He fears his passions are gone and he is now nothing but an observer.
The use of enjambment here, suggests that the poet is envious of the companionship that the swans possess. The water is cold, but ‘companionable’ suggests that they get warmth from one another.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
Not just love: passion; exuberance; inspiration
The swans are passive in this area. The “passion” and “conquest” attend upon them, not the other way around.
The departure of the swans symbolizes the fleeting nature of time as well as all that he’s missed in that span. This idea is also developed by his analogy of having been asleep and waking up to find the swans have left: “Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day/to find they have flown away?”

49. But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful;
The word “But” takes us back from his comparison of himself and the swans and the tone shifts from the previous movement and sound and his envy of their ability, to the stillness and beauty of the original scene.
Connotations of floating, aimlessly, guided only by the water’s wishes: nature’s wishes. There is a oneness between the swans and nature.
But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
“All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight…the bell-beat of their wings above my head”:
The poem was first published in 1917, right in the midst of World War One and the Irish Revolution. Considering Yeats’ first trip to Coole Park was in 1897, much has changed in that span of time, and changed dramatically. He has no doubt witnessed the demise of many acquaintances in these two wars.
This purpose is extremely important, and is executed skilfully and artfully. This subject matter certainly must have struck a chord with his peers, and even today people can identify with the dramatic changes and events that occur over time, and the melancholy that can result from it.

50. Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
INTENSIVE CLASS

51. Leda and the Swan
Leda and the Swan is based on the Greek myth and is a prelude to conflict in The Iliad, known as the Trojan War. The poem implies that by impregnating Leda, the Swan (who is Zeus in disguise) brings about the destruction of the city of Troy. Suffice to say prophecies and curses in ancient Greek mythology were often the stuff of legends. The poem was published in 1924, and Yeats gave the reason for writing the poem as follows: ‘because the editor of a political review asked for a poem.’ He started writing the poem with respect to politics, perhaps representing the fall and corruption of Ireland in parallel with Troy, but ‘bird and lady took such possession of the scene that all politics went out of it.’

52. Leda and the Swan
In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy, also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. By marriage she was Queen of Laconia, a province within Homeric Greece, the wife of King Menelaus. Her abduction by Paris, Prince of Troy, brought about the Trojan War. Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides and Homer in both The Iliad and The Odyssey.

53. A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Yeats uses the Petrarchan sonnet form in this poem, with a rhyming scheme of ABAB CDCD EFG EFG, and while it is a sonnet there is a paradoxical effect: this is not a poem about love, it is a poem about rape and violence; and the end of the Trojan civilisation.
This contains kinaesthetic (the sense that detects bodily position, weight, or movement of the muscles, tendons, and joints), visual imagery and synecdoche. The word “sudden blow” refers to the Swan’s attack. The use of a colon acts as caesura, and implies the stunning effect of the swan’s attack. That word contains a movement. Then, the word “great wings” refers to the Swan’s wings which is very huge.
This contains organic and kinaesthetic imagery. The word “staggering girl” refers to Leda’s feeling about the Swan’s attack. She feels that the Swan is very heavy. She is also shocked by raping from the Swan.
This line contains visual imagery as the phrase “the dark webs” refers to the Swan’s feet which the feet are webbed and dark. Synecdoche in “dark webs”.
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
This line contains organic imagery. The words “helpless breast” refers to Leda’s powerlessness, that she does not, or is unable to, do anything to reject the rape. Her breast is personified as helpless.
In the first stanza, Zeus strikes Leda, making her stagger and stumble. The reader is not given the specifics of the brute blow, such as where he hits her, but it is clear that the blow was enough to unbalance her. (Also, please note that Yeats never specifies the two subjects of his poem as Zeus or Leda. They, in fact, remain unnamed.) As Leda attempts to gather her bearings, the Swan takes this opportunity to pin Leda's legs with his feet and capture her neck in his bill.

54. How can those terrified vague fingers push
This line contains kinaesthetic imagery. The word “terrified vague fingers” refers to Leda finger movements. Her fingers just move in vague movement. She wants to stop the rape, but she cannot do it.
This line contains visual imagery and a rhetorical question. The metaphor of, and use of synecdoche, in “feathered glory” refers to the Swan’s genitals. Then, the word “loosening thighs” refers to the condition of Leda thighs which she cannot do anything to avoid the raping.
This line contains visual imagery and a rhetorical question. The words “white rush” refers to the Swan’s action that is raping Leda. The action is fast and it is only the white colour of the feathers that can be seen. This condition is the reason why Leda is surprised.
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?
This line contains tactile imagery. The word “heart beating” refers to the beat that Leda feels in her chest. She doesn’t know who the owner of that heart. It maybe belongs to Zeus’s heart as god or as a animal.
In the second stanza, Yeats makes it clear that Zeus, in swan form, means to ravage Leda. For, the narrator questions how Leda, following the volta, weak in comparison to her assailant and terrified, can push away the Swan's “feathered glory” as he forcefully pries open her legs. In addition, the narrator questions how Leda, despite her situation, can focus on and appreciate the Swan's beating heart.

55. A shudder in the loins engenders there
This line contains visual imagery. “Agamemnon” refers to the king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks. Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to ensure the Greeks made it to Troy. On his return, in his hubris and glory, Agamemnon was tricked by his wife, Clytemnestra, and lost the protection of Zeus. He was murdered by her and Aegisthus, his wife’s lover.
This line contains organic imagery. The word “shudder in the loins” refers to the orgasm felt by Leda and the Swan. That feeling is located in the body. She is pregnant with Zeus’s daughter who will lead Trojan war.
This line contains visual imagery. The word “broken and burning” refers to the
sight of the Trojan War. The wall, roof and tower are damaged and burning. We can see the that place condition is very terrible.
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
The swan’s orgasm begets the Trojan War which results in the death of Agamemnon.
In the third stanza, the reader learns that the swan does, in fact, manage to ravage Leda as he orgasms. In doing so, Zeus impregnates Leda. And, as some of you may or may not know, Leda and Zeus's daughter will be the infamous Helen of Troy--the face that launched a thousand ships. The narrator suggests that Zeus's violent sexual encounter with Leda was really the beginning of the Trojan War and the act that sealed Agamemnon's fate. (Agamemnon was killed by Clytemnestra, Leda's daughter by another man and Helen's half-sister).
Since Leda and the Swan is a Petrarchan sonnet , line 10 makes a shift called ‘the turn.’ Here, the shift is obvious: the Swan completes the sexual act. “A shudder in the loins” means that either the Swan and/or Leda has had an orgasm. The swan “engenders” new life inside Leda; that is, he makes her pregnant. Yeats once again assumes that his readers know the end of the myth: that Leda becomes pregnant with the beautiful Helen of Troy, over whom the famous Trojan War will be fought. The war marked the transition between the ancient and modern worlds (can anyone say gyre?). The Trojan War was also the source of inspiration for Homer's The Iliad (Troy was known as Ilium in Greek), one of the most influential epic stories in Western civilization.

56. So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
The contrast in tenses used before and after the volta alter the immediacy of particular events in the reader’s mind. The present tense of “holds”, “push”, “loosening”, “feel”, and “lies” before the volta make the events of the rape seem immediate and vivid, whereas the past tenses of “caught” “mastered” and “did” make the rhetorical questions seem more pensive, distant and retrospective.
The word “brute blood” refers to the Swan's flowing blood in his vein. Some external movement part of this poem theme. It is also ambiguous: as we do not know if Zeus used his God’s heart or animal’s heart when he did it. Synecdoche in “brute blood of the air”, and implies figuratively that the air is a living thing.
The word “put on” refers to the Leda’s knowledge about the future. Her daughter will conduct Trojan war in Greek. By the movement of the time, Leda will bear Helen and Clytemnestra who are connected to the Trojan War and the death of Agamemnon.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
The word “drop” here refers to the Swan’s action that he lets Leda drop. Zeus just flies away after he rapes Leda. Does he actually know the effect of his action? It is possible that Zeus did this on purpose. Synecdoche in “indifferent beak”, as well as personification.
In the last stanza, the speaker wonders if Leda knew that she was being ravaged by a god. (There is also a question if Zeus knew that this act would be the indirect cause of the Trojan War.) However, the speaker notes that Leda did not have too much time to ponder on things as Zeus coldly and indifferently drops her or releases her after he has had his way with her.