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Leda and the Swan
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Leda and the Swan

sonnet by Yeats
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History

Leda and the Swan, sonnet by William Butler Yeats, composed in 1923, printed in The Dial (June 1924), and published in the collection The Cat and the Moon and Certain Poems (1924). The poem is based on the Greek mythological story of beautiful Leda, who gave birth to Helen and Clytemnestra after she was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. The poem details the rape of Leda with graphic imagery. At the...

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