THE EXPLICATION OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS’S POEM
“LEDA AND THE SWAN”
By
Name : Rosdiana
S. Number :2055111014
THE FACULTY OF LETTER AND CULTURE
YOGYAKARTA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
YOGYAKARTA
2008
The Author
William Butler Yeats is an Irish author, a distinguished Irish artist and a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. He was born at Sandymount, Dublin on the 13th of June 1869. At nine years old, he went to live with his parents in London, and was sent to Godolpin School, Hammersmith. At fifteen, he went to the Erasmus Smith School in Dublin. Later he studied painting for a short time at the Royal Dublin Society, but soon turned to literature. Yeats’s father, John Butler Yeats is a Pre Raphaelite painter. Pre-Raphaelites is “ a group of poets and painters of the mid-nineteen century who revolutionized both art and poetry, their created some basic rules that would permeate English culture until modernism took over in the second decade of the twentieth century. Their manifesto was straightforward ; fidelity to nature, democracy of the components-equality of attention to details, a yearning for an idyllic past, usually medieval, a respect for the personal and handmade in architecture, and later the feeling of coming end an era”(http//www.wikipedia.com)
In 1888, he was encouraged by Oscar Wilde to try his fortune in London, where he published his first volume of verse, “The wandering of Oishin” in 1889. it is original and romantic touch impressed discerning critics, and started a new interest in the Celtic movement. Yeats,s art is quickly identified by enthusiast with the literary side of new Irish national movement. His inspiration maybe may be traced in some measure to the Pre-Raphaelites and also to Shelley and Maeterlinck which was he produced some romantic lyric in his poem like “The Lake Isle Of Innisfree”. And then by William Blake, he began to made poems in the mystic approach, he got his mystic idea from many sources like, theosophy, spiritism, and Neo-Platonism. And after war world I, he added metaphysic and epigram element in his poems. In 1889 he met Maud Gonne, a beautiful Irish terrorist. With Gonne, Yeats developed hi interest in Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists, a group who believed that knowledge of God could be attained through spiritual ecstasy and direct intuition, but he eventually was asked to leave because he demanded proof. Yet he remained interested in the Cabbala, Order of the Golden Dawn, mysticism, magic, spiritualism, astrology, and his work is inspire with this duality of spiritualism and need for verification.
Yeats also benefited from friendship of Ezra Pound. Pound was to some extend responsible for the modernization in Yeats’ poetry in the second decade of the century. The poem “A Coat,” considered by many to be a declaration of a new “naked” style of verse, was a product of this period with Pound. When after married Georgia Hyde-less at the age of 52, he began get a new inspiration and metaphors for poetry. He was reborn, and many of his later poems reflect the poems, historical and spiritual system. A major part of the theory is based on the phases of the moon, the cycles of fullness and emptiness, and their implications for history, psychology, politics, as well as a development of the individual per. This cycle is repeatein a dynamic pyramid shape, in what Yeats called “gyres.” Which expand from a center of intensity at the beginning to an amorphous cycle at the end, at which point another gyres is began. The looseness of the cycle, the lack of connection with a core here, was characterized the twentieth century. A new center of point for a new cycle will began, a new Messiah. The system with its entire ramification is set out in his book “A Vision”, and this book contain “Leda and the Swan” poem.
In December 1923, William Butler Yeats awarded a Nobel Prizes. He is the first Irish writer to be awarded the Nobel Prizes for literature. W B Yeats was the leader of the Irish literary renaissance that aimed at reviving ancient folklore, legends and traditions in new literary works. William Butler Yeats died on 28 of January, 1939.
History of Leda and the Swan
Leda and the Swan actually is the motif of Greek mythology, in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a Swan. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeceus, children of Zeus while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, the children of her husband Tyndarius, the king of Sparta. As the story goes, Zeus took the form of the Swan a Swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband, king Tyndarius. In some version, she laid two eggs from with the children hatched. In others versions, Helen is the daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.
The motif ever made in sculpture. Timotheos is known to have represented Leda in sculpture; a small-scale example survive showing both reclining and standing poses, in cameos and engraved gems, rings, and terracotta oil lamps. In 16th century, Leonardo Da Vinci painted Leda and the Swan. In 1508 he painted a different composition of the subject, with a nude standing Leda cuddling the Swan, with the two sets of infant twins, and their huge broken eggs-shells. And Michelangelo also ever painted Leda and the Swan.
Leda and the Swan became again popular motif in the later 19th and 20th centuries, with many symbolist and Expressionist treatment. Avant-Garde filmmaker Kurt Kren along with other members of the Vienna Actionist movement including Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitch made a film performance version of Leda and the Swan called 7/64 Leda mit der Schwan in 1964. The film retains the classical motif, portraying, for most of its duration, a young woman embracing a swan. Photographer Charlie White included a potrait of Leda in his “And Jeopardize the Integrity of the Hull” series. Zeus as the swan only appears metaphorically. And then the Icelandic singer Bjork illustrates the legend with the cover of her 4th studio album Vespertine. In poetry, “Leda and the Swan” wrote by Ronsard. He wrote a poem on La Defloration de lede, perhaps inspired by Michelangelo. Like many artists, he imagine the beak penetrating Leda’s mouth. And William Butler Yeats wrote a poem entitled “ Leda and the Swan” were published in 1928, combining psychological realism with mystic vision, it describes the swan rape of Leda.
“Leda and the Swan”
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 hold her helpless breast upon his breast.
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?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
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?
Explication
“Leda and the Swan” is a sonnet, a traditional fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is ABAB CDCD EFGEFG. “Leda and the Swan” represented a change of era in Yeats’ historical model of “gyres”, which is he offers in A Vision. A book which is contains his mystical theory of the universe. He wrote this poem as he understand it, the history of Leda is that raped by the god Zeus in the form of a swan, she laid eggs which hatched into Clytemnestra and Helen and war gods Castor and Polydeuces and brought the Trojan war.
Title
“Leda and the Swan”
Leda is the name of a women, it is shows that the writer wants to indicates Leda as the subject of the poem. And the swan uses as the imagery of a man. According to the Greek myth the swan is the representation of the god Zeus.
Lines 1-4
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girls her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
The structure of the sonnet is Petrarchan, an Italian format sonnet that characteristically divides the theme into an octave, in which a problem or emotion is stated, and a sestet, in which the problem or emotion tension is resolved. There is a clear separation between the first eight lines (octave) and the final six (the sestet). The octave is divided into two four lines stanzas, or quatrains. Line 1 begins that the swan came to the girl suddenly without realized by the girl, the line continue with a description of the great swan hanging in the air above the girl with his wings beating. The word “still” here, probably want to tell the reader that the swan is not moves, when it was done the next act. In line 2, there is a description of Leda that indicates she is staggered by the swan. The swan caresses her thighs with his webbed feet. It is shown in line 3 by the word s “dark webs”. In line 3 there is also the image of Leda’s neck in his bill as he holds her helpless against him. Actually the swan is never told directly in the poem, but its presence in ordinary images like “great wings” and “dark webs”. Leda is simply the girl who is caught in the bird’s beak like a small helpless animal. In line 4 indicates that the girl cannot against him, it can be seen by the word “breast upon breast”.
Lines 5-8
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But fell the strange heart beating where it lies?
In the second quatrain continues with a description that the girl cannot push the god’s body from her “loosening thighs” because Leda’s fingers are “terrified” and “vague”, this words show that she is powerless. She loses her identify with the continuing attack, she is not longer even “girl” but merely “body” laid in a “white rush”. She feels the pulsation of the bird’s “strange heart” against her. In this stanza, the picture of the swan or bird is presence in simple images by the words “feathered glory” with a “strange heart”.
Lines 9-11
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
In the final sestet, the poem moves away from the description of the rape. It is shows what is happened in future of the Troy. In line 9 begins with the swan’s desire, the “shudder in the loins” that its explained endangers “the broken wall, the burning roof, and the tower/and Agamemnon dead”. According to the Greek history, it is describes the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon at the conclusion of the Trojan wars. From another sources, the phrases “broken wall”, “burning roof”, and “tower” also have sexual connotations. The broken wall refers to the breaking of the female hymen in sexual intercourse, the burning roof refers to the vagina, the tower is a symbol of the phallus. Fire traditionally symbolizes sexual passion and represents the divine union with the human.
The break in line 11 is the only deviation from the traditional form of the sonnet, and the division stresses the completeness of thought presented in the previous eighteen words that express a vast historical process. The mortal Leda is caught in this cosmic pattern, a helpless victim of divine forces that use her merely as a means to a larger end.
Lines 12-14
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?
After the break in line 11, the writer changes tenses (this times to past) and ends the poem with another question. The writer asks if Leda, as she was taken and ravage so savagely by this “brute blood of the air”, the god in the form of the swan, knew the consequences of what was happening to her. When she is violated by and in union with the god, does she come to some sort of divine knowledge? Does she know, as he obviously must because of his divinity, that this act portends the end of a civilization? In these lines, the description of the swan as the “brute blood of the air” identifies Zeus with a cosmic force. The poem ends in the last line with an image of the swan, after he has satisfied his desire and lets her drop, indifferent to his victim’s terrifying experiences.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Echols. M John and Shadily Hassan. 2000. Kamus Inggris-Indonesia, Indonesia-Inggris
Jakarta: PT Gramedia
Samekto, S.S. MA. 1998. Ikhtisar Sejarah Kesusasteraan Inggris. Jakarta: DAYA
WIDYA
http//www.google.com
http//www.online-literature.com/yeats
http//www.sparknotes.com/poetry/yeats/section 7.rtml-27k
htt//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda-and- the Swan.
Wood Smoke/black Carbon Soot: a Major Cause of Global Warming.
In the frenzied search for solutions to the global warming crisis, climatologists, policy makers and other concerned environmentalists have overlooked one of the leading causes of rising temperatures around the globe—soot---the black residue that coats fireplaces and darkens vehicle exhaust. Black carbon soot may in fact be the second largest contributor to global warming next to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
According to Stanford environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, “Soot, or black carbon, may be responsible for 15 to 30 percent of global warming, yet it is not even considered in any of the discussions about controlling climate change.” (“Nature”, ScienceDaily, Feb. 9, 2001). Jacobson also observed that human beings produce most of the soot particles that pollute the atmosphere. He maintains that soot consists primarily of elemental carbon and that 90 percent of it comes from the consumption of fossil fuels (particularly coal, diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, kerosene) and the burning of wood and other biomass. Jacobson also claims that a worldwide reduction in soot emissions and controlling biomass burning could quell the alarming pace of global warming and also reduce our reliance on soot-producing fuels.
( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/02/010208075206.htm.)
Besides its impact on global warming, soot is bad for your health. The World Health Organization reports that approximately 2.7 million people die each year from air pollution and that reduction of wood and other biomass burning would mitigate global warming and would also save lives and improve people’s health.
Other studies have dispelled the myth that burning wood and other biomass is “green or carbon neutral” and that the fine particulates emitted during the combustion process actually hasten climate change. (www.burningissues.org under both “Science” and “Global Warming” headings).
The warming effect of black carbon soot is far greater than previously estimated
Atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of Iowa chemical engineer Greg Carmichael found that “black carbon soot, from burning wood and other biomass, cooking with solid fuels, and diesel exhaust has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates.” (Nature Geoscience 1, 221-227 (March 24, 2008). They calculated that soot and other forms of black carbon particulates may represent as much as 60 percent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide and their findings correlated with similar studies from Stanford, Caltech, and NASA.
A simplified explanation for the warming effect is that wood smoke’s fine particulates thin clouds. And as total airborne particulates increase, cloud cover decreases, allowing more sunlight to reach the earth. According to Ramanathan, approximately 35 percent of black carbon in the global atmosphere comes from China and India. Yet per capita emissions of black carbon soot from the United States and some European countries is still comparable to those from Asia. Ramanathan's research also found that the warming effects of black carbon smog appear to be accelerating the melt of Himalayan glaciers, leading to early drying of a major source of drinking water for billions of people throughout Asia.
The International Global Panel on Climate Change (IGPCC) agreed that black carbon soot is a major contributor to global warming
The 2007 Nobel-winning IGPCC panel of approximately two thousand scientists concluded that black carbon soot has a dire atmospheric warming effect. This was significant because soot had previously been unaddressed as a major contributor to global warming. Nor had the amplification of black carbon’s warming effect previously been taken into account when mixed with other aerosols, creating additional secondary fine particulates.
Studies of fine particulates from wood smoke in various communities
An EPA study cites that “In some neighborhoods, on some days, 90% of the particle pollution is from residential wood burning.” (Jane Koenig and Timothy Larson, A Summary of Emissions Characterization and Non-Cancer Respiratory Effects of Wood Smoke, USEPA DOC #453/R-93-036,1-919-541-0888).
A study in two San Jose, California locations showed that wood smoke pollution was 4.4 times that of gasoline or diesel fueled vehicles.(“A Comparison of Source Apportionments of Fine Particulate Matter at Two San Jose, CA Locations,” from San Jose Speciation Trends Network.)
The next step
Because the urgency of reducing black carbon emissions cannot be overstated, reducing soot from wood smoke would offer nearly instant benefits in improving atmospheric conditions in the United States. It would also offer immediate societal and health benefits. This would facilitate political and regulatory momentum towards mitigation of black carbon emissions.
It is urgent to advance public awareness of wood smoke’s crucial role in global warming with education and policy changes.
