13+ Leda And The Swan Poem Background. This conception results in the birth of helen of troy, who grows up to cause the legendary trojan war—an event that. In his poem leda and the swan, william butler yeats retells the classic greek myth in which leda, a human woman, is impregnated by the god zeus while he is in the form of a swan.
The poem starts off as an english style sonnet (three quatrains and a couplet with the quatrains rhyming abab et cetera, and the couplet rhyming with itself) but switches into the italian form after the second.
The brevity, force, ambiguousness, of yeats's poem continuously challenge, so i too join their number. Leda and the swan is a sonnet considered one of the most perfect poems of w.b. Copyright 1933 by macmillan publishing company, renewed 1961 by georgie yeats. Leda and the swan is a sonnet by william butler yeats.