i need help in poem analsis

[brownpen]

Snow

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Ok. comparing two things.. but why?

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, 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?


I doesn't understand the message the poet wants to convey..

[Whifflingpin]

Snow -
"Comparing two things?" what two things do you mean?
"Why?" to demonstrate, perhaps, that "World is ... Incorrigibly plural."

Are the two poems related?

Is there a connection/contrast with "Windhover" or "Glory be to God for dappled things" by G.M. Hopkins?

Leda -
Do you know the story of Leda? that Leda, being shut away from men, in a tower, was visited and impregnated by the god Zeus, in the form of a swan. The resulting children included Helen and Clytemnaestra. Helen's abduction from her husband (Agamemnon's brother) resulted in the destruction of Troy. Agamemnon married and was murdered by Clytemnaestra.

The poet, Yeats, would almost certainly have taken it for that the story would be known by anyone reading his sonnet.

Would you say that this was merely a description of a rape, told with great sympathy for the woman?

Are the subsequent disasters in the next generation presented as being the inevitable result of a rape? If so, could the poet be implying that this would always be the case?

Remembering that the "message" in a sonnet is usually contained in the last lines, would, could, you say that the poem was about the callousness of the gods towards humans?

What does the poem say to you? What feelings or opinions does it leave you with.

Come up with some answers and quote the words from the poem to justify your answers.

Learn the poem - it should speak to you for years, with different meanings.

[sybilline]

"Snow" is really a lovely poem. Who wrote it ?
There is no comparison between the snow and the roses. The poet's design is to make us feel how generous and rich is Nature, and how its ways are mysterious, defying imagination. It reminds me of the first line of "Frost at Midnight" (The frost performs its secret ministry).
What is so striking in Nature is its duality and its unity which make opposites participate to the same universe, even if they are incompatible.
It is to such an extent that the poet finds that the world is crazy, he feels drunk, but this state is the source and the fountain of his exaltation and creation. And one cannot deny that it is more than glass, something material, as its rises his soul to the highest levels.

[Niamh]

Snow


Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, 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?


I doesn't understand the message the poet wants to convey..

I studied Yeats for my leaving certificate i one thing i can remember is that his poems, no matter what its context apears to be, i.e here it is tha story of the rape of Leda by Zeus in the form of a swan, he has more deeper meanings, some of which are political.

In Stanza one and two, Yeats tells of the imediate rape. Leda is caught unawares by Zeus in the form af a swan and is raped. Simple. well not really. For starters why this story? Why a swan? swans are simbols of beauty, they are elegant and graceful and apear to be harmless. but they are not. they are brutal and very strong. ie looks can be decieving. Yeats points this out in stanza two,

'How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

I think that Yeats is using this story to convey simply that evrything is decieving, even the most innocent could prove to be dangerous and that every action has a concequence. Here the action is a rape, the concequence is death, war, and destuction.


A shudder in the loins, engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Then yeats questions. It appears as if Leda didnt realise who her attacker was until he was finished his act and had discarded her Indifferently. But i think the Question Yeats asks is this, If Zeus knew what the out come of his actions would be, would he have done it? In the story of Leda and the swan it is believed that Zeus and fallen for leda, and knowning that she might reject him in his true form, disguised himself in the shape of a swan and after luring her in to false security raped her. Hera,the wife of Zeus is supposed to have discovered the rape and cursed the children. The outcome was war and death. (This is how the story was told to me. There are many different tellings of the story)

So as for the message the poet wants to convey i think it's this;

If we could all see into the future and see what the consequences of are actions are, would we do the thing we do? would we continue to live in our own little worlds thinking everything is safe and that no one would harm us especially those that look harmless. That something that appears to be weak could actually be strong. That we all decieve ourselves. ;)

This is only my interpretation of the poem. I'm sure someone in the forum studied it and can give you a more accurate interpretation as mine is only what i got from briefly reading it as i did not study this yeats poem in school. I did do no second troy though. :)

[sybilline]

Leda and the Swan.
Just to add something, I think that the use of the swan calls attention to another theme, the duality in human nature. As the story hinges round Leda's rape, it has to do with the duality of life and death. It is why this poem tackles the subject of war, and has political connotations. I haven't studied the poem, so I cannot give you further explanation at the moment. Good luck !