Violence and violation: the rape in yeats's "Leda and the swan"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/el.2010v6.e25519Keywords:
W. B. Yeats, "Leda and the Swan", Rape, Violence.Abstract
In that which is possibly his most famous sonnet, the Irish poet W. B. Yeats describes the scene and the consequences of the rape of Leda by Zeus, transformed into a swan. The violence of this approximation and the rape, as well as the images of the Trojan War, product of this fateful intercourse, becomes even more shocking due to some of the poem’s features, which seems at times to commiserate with the victim and at others to condone with the god, who was thus justified for his acts by the history. This study aims at investigating how criticism has dealt with this act of violence in Yeats’s poem, as a way of approaching the complexities of violence against the female body.References
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BROOKS, Cleanth. Irony as a Principle of Structure. In: KEESEY, Donald (ed). Contexts for Criticism. Mountain View: Mayfield, 1998.
CULLINGFORD, Elizabeth Butler. At the Feet of the Goddess: Yeats's Love Poetry and the Feminist Occult. In: TOOMEY, Deirdre (ed). Yeats Annual Special: Yeats and Women. Londres: Macmillan, 1997. p.41-72.
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CULLINGFORD, Elizabeth Butler. Pornography and Canonicity: The Case of Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan”. In: HEINZELMAN, Susan S.; WISEMAN, Zipporah B. Law, Literature, and Feminism. Durhan: Duke University Press, 1994, 165-188. Disponível em: http://www.ibiblio.org/sally/Leda.html. Acesso em: 5 ago. 2007.
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KEESEY, Donald. Contexts for Criticism. 3 ed. Mountain View: Mayfield, 1998.
LEVINE, Bernard. The Dissolving Image: The Spiritual-Esthetic Development of W. B. Yeats. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970.
NEIGH, Janet. Reading from the Drop: Poetics of Identification and Yeats’s Leda and the Swan. JOURNAL of Modern Literature, n. 29, v. 4, p. 145-60, 2006.
ROBERTS, W. Rhys. Longinus on the Sublime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889. 5 Aug 2007. Disponível em: http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/longinus/index.htm. Acesso em: 5 ago. 2007.
ROSENTHAL, M. L. Running to Paradise: Yeats’s Poetic Art. Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 217-63.
SEDGWICK, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men. In: RIVKIN, Julie; RYAN, Michael. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. p. 696-712.
TROWBRIDGE, Hoyt. Leda and the Swan: A Longinian Analysis. MODERN Philology, n. 51, v. 2, p. 115-29, 1953.
YEATS, W. B. Leda and the Swan. In: ALLT, Peter; ALSPACH, Russel K. The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1957.
BROOKS, Cleanth. Irony as a Principle of Structure. In: KEESEY, Donald (ed). Contexts for Criticism. Mountain View: Mayfield, 1998.
CULLINGFORD, Elizabeth Butler. At the Feet of the Goddess: Yeats's Love Poetry and the Feminist Occult. In: TOOMEY, Deirdre (ed). Yeats Annual Special: Yeats and Women. Londres: Macmillan, 1997. p.41-72.
CULLINGFORD, Elizabeth Butler. Gender and History in Yeats’s Love Poetry. Nova York: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
CULLINGFORD, Elizabeth Butler. Pornography and Canonicity: The Case of Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan”. In: HEINZELMAN, Susan S.; WISEMAN, Zipporah B. Law, Literature, and Feminism. Durhan: Duke University Press, 1994, 165-188. Disponível em: http://www.ibiblio.org/sally/Leda.html. Acesso em: 5 ago. 2007.
FAHERTY, Michael (ed.). The Poetry of W. B. Yeats: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. Nova York: Palgrave, 2005.
FOSTER, R. F. W. B. Yeats: A Life. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
KEESEY, Donald. Contexts for Criticism. 3 ed. Mountain View: Mayfield, 1998.
LEVINE, Bernard. The Dissolving Image: The Spiritual-Esthetic Development of W. B. Yeats. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970.
NEIGH, Janet. Reading from the Drop: Poetics of Identification and Yeats’s Leda and the Swan. JOURNAL of Modern Literature, n. 29, v. 4, p. 145-60, 2006.
ROBERTS, W. Rhys. Longinus on the Sublime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889. 5 Aug 2007. Disponível em: http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/longinus/index.htm. Acesso em: 5 ago. 2007.
ROSENTHAL, M. L. Running to Paradise: Yeats’s Poetic Art. Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 217-63.
SEDGWICK, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men. In: RIVKIN, Julie; RYAN, Michael. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. p. 696-712.
TROWBRIDGE, Hoyt. Leda and the Swan: A Longinian Analysis. MODERN Philology, n. 51, v. 2, p. 115-29, 1953.
YEATS, W. B. Leda and the Swan. In: ALLT, Peter; ALSPACH, Russel K. The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1957.
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Published
2010-11-16
How to Cite
Viana, M. R. D. (2010). Violence and violation: the rape in yeats’s "Leda and the swan". Estação Literária, 6, 52–62. https://doi.org/10.5433/el.2010v6.e25519
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Artigos do Dossiê Temático
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