Leda and the Swan | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Leda and the Swan Critical Overview

When Yeats first published a version of "Leda and the Swan" in 1924 in the radical monthly paper To-morrow, it was met with criticism from many conservatives who deplored its sexually explicit subject matter. Yeats later revised the poem (not because of the criticism but because he constantly reworked his poetry), and it appeared in his prose work A Vision in 1925 in a slightly amended form and as an epigraph to a lengthy discussion of his cyclical theory of history. The poem was revised four more times and appeared in its final version in the 1928 collection, The Tower. That volume was received enthusiastically by reviewers, and it is still regarded as one of the poet's greatest works.

Some early readers again found the sexual explicitness of "Leda and the Swan" troublesome, but for the most part it was greatly admired. Contemporary critics have been extremely generous...
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