Rhetorical Figures in Leda and the Swan Essay -- Leda and the Swan Ess

rhetorical Figures in Leda and the Swan Leda and the Swan, a sonnet by William Butler Yeats, describes a rape. According to Perrine, the first quatrain describes the fierce assault and the foreplay the second quatrain, the playact of intercourse the third part of the sestet, the versed climax (147). The rape that Yeats describes is no ordinary rape it is a rape by a god. temporarily embodied in the majestic form of a swan, Zeus, king of the gods, fulfil his passion for Leda, a mortal princess (Perrine 147). The union produced two offspring Helen of troy and Clytemnestra, Agamemnons wife. In recounting this momentous rape with large consequences for the future, (Perrine 147) Yeats uses rhetorical figures in each of the sonnets three stanzas. The figures in the first stanza create tension and portray the event. All definitions for the rhetorical figures mentioned in this essay are derived from Lanhams A Handlist of rhetorical Terms. Yeats opens with an example of brachylogia, br evity of speech. His elliptical fragment, A sudden blow, recreates the stunning tinge and tension of the assault. The poet uses alliteration in the form of consonance the plosive b first found in blow subtly batters the ear throughout the quatrain--beating, bill, and breast, which occurs twice the initial g found in great echoes in girl and an initial h repeats in her, which occurs three times, he, holds, helpless, and his. Yeats ends the first take in with beating still, an example of anastrophe, a kind of hyperbaton, the unusual arrangement of delivery or clauses within a sentence, frequently for poetic effect. The figure non only creates tension through arrangement but also throug... ...idled sexual passion, the coexistence of power and wisdom in human life, and the potential for combining modern vitality and passion with mature knowledge and wisdom. Works Cited Lanham, Richard A. A Handlist of rhetorical Terms. 2nd ed. Berkeley U of California P. 1991. 1-161. Perrine, L aurence. Instructors Manual to Accompany Literature Structure, Sound, and Sense. quaternate ed. New York Harcourt. 1983. 147-48. Yeats, William Butler. Leda and the Swan. Literature Structure, Sound, and Sense. 4th ed. Ed. Laurence Perrine. New York Harcourt. 1983. 636 The Spiritual Marriage of Maud Gonne and W.B Yeats (excerpt from Women of the friendly Dawn Rebels and Priestesses by Mary K. Greer--an account of Yeatss fascination with the beautiful Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, who inspired his greatest poetry and plays))