Rhetorical Figures of 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 preliminaries; the second quatrain, the sexual act; the third part of the sestet, the sexual climax” (147). The rape Yeats describes is no ordinary rape: it is rape committed by a god. Temporarily incarnated in the majestic form of a swan, Zeus, king of the gods, consummated his passion for Leda, mortal princess (Perrine 147). From this union two children were born: Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon. In recounting this “memorable rape” with “great 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 describe the event. All definitions of rhetorical figures mentioned in this essay are derived from Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Yeats opens with an example of brachylogy, of brevity of speech. Its elliptical fragment, “A Sudden Blow,” recreates the stunning impact and tension of the assault. The poet uses alliteration in the form of consonance: the plosive "b" first found in "coup" subtly strikes the ear throughout the quatrain – "beat", "beak" and "breast", which appears twice ; the initial “g” found in “great” echoes “girl”; and an initial 'h' is repeated in 'she', which appears three times, 'he', 'holds', 'helpless' and 'his'. Yeats ends the first line with "beat again", an example of anastrophe, a kind of hyperbaton, the unusual arrangement of words or clauses in a sentence, often for poetic effect. The figure not only creates tension through arrangement, but also through...... middle of paper......idle sexual passion, the coexistence of power and wisdom in human life, and the potential to combine youthful vitality and passion with mature knowledge and wisdom. Works Cited Lanham, Richard A. A List of Rhetorical Terms. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California P. 1991. 1-161. Perrine, Laurence. Instructor's manual to accompany literature: structure, sound and meaning. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt. 1983. 147-48. Yeats, William Butler. “Leda and the Swan.” Literature: structure, sound and meaning. 4th ed. Ed. Laurence Perrine. New York: Harcourt. 1983. 636The Spiritual Marriage of Maud Gonne and WB Yeats (from Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses by Mary K. Greer - an account of Yeats's fascination with the beautiful Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, who inspired his greatest poetry and plays.))