Rhetorical Figures In Yeats's
"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 act of intercourse; the third part of the sestet, the sexual 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, consummated his passion for Leda, a mortal princess (Perrine 147). The union produced two offspring: Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife. In recounting this "momentous rape" with "large consequences for the future," (Perrine 147) Yeats uses rhetorical figures in each of the sonnet's 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 Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Yeats opens with an example of brachylogia, brevity of speech.......
View the rest of this paper...
Approximate Word Count: 1437
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)
Why should you join Frat Files?
- - It's safe, secure, and private.
- - Instant access to over 100,000 papers. New papers are added hourly.
- - Fast and reliable customer support.
Similar Essays
-
Rhetorical Figures In Yeats'S
Rhetorical Figures in Yeats's. ... It seems likely, given the time and the place of
his education, that Yeats consciously uses rhetorical figures. ... -
English Literature
... wrote in blank verse with a rhetorical brilliance and ... In fact, many of the towering
figures of 20th ... English literature were not English; Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, O ...
Frat Files
Members
Information
