Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan': Psycho-Sexual Therapy in Action Yeats's heavily anthologized poem, "Leda and the Swan," can be read inendless ways: as a political poem, a poem influenced by Nietzsche's idea of "Will toPower," a poem of knowledge ultimately achieved through violence. Is the poem simplyreferr ing to a myth? Is it addressing historical determinism? Critical methodologiesattempt to address these issues and more in their treatments of "Leda and the Swan." However, to understand fully the poem and its implications, a formal close reading of the text must be combined with supplementary biographical information to inform a finalpsychoanalytic reading of the poem. An understanding of the events surrounding Yeats'slife, then, will contribute to a textual analysis to show that the poem can be re ad asYeats's own particular rape fantasy, in which Maud Gonne is Leda and Yeats himself theswan; and in displacing his frustrations into the poem, Yeats turns destructive impulsesinto a constructive thing of beauty. "Leda and the Swan" is a sonnet, one of the most precise forms of literatureknown. An interesting paradox emerges, however, at first glance. The poem is writtenin a traditional form (sonnet), using a traditional rhyme scheme, yet the subject matteri s extremely non-traditional (violent rape as opposed to the usual love sonnets). Thisparadox is representative of the many oppositional elements which abound in the text andwhich help form the basis for understanding the oppositions which influence bot h Yeatsand the poem. The rhyme scheme is traditional (ABAB CDCD EFG EFG) yet interestingly imperfectin that four of the rhymes are not perfect: "push" and "rush," "up" and "drop"(Hargrove 244). This again is another oppositional element, typical of Yeats, and couldbe seen to symbolize the opposition between Yeats, the last Romantic, and Yeats, theModernist. A transition exists in the poem's language, from an aggressive inten...
