Re-tellings of the Myth of Leda and the Swan: A Feminist Perspective

This article examines the representation of the myth of “Leda and the Swan” in selected feminist poems by four poetesses, namely Van Duyn's "Leda" (1971), Clifton's Trilogy "Leda 1," "Leda 2," and "Leda 3" (1993), Kossman's "Leda" (1996), and Bentley's "Living Next to Leda" (1996). Common representations of this myth in paintings and literature mainly written by men portray the sexual encounter between Leda and the swan in an ambivalent way, focusing on the vigor of the swan, the hesitation/complicity of Leda, and how their union empowers Leda and results in the birth of Helen. This essentially romanticized; aestheticized version of the myth counters the violation of rape with the glory of the beautiful god-swan and the tacit complaisance of Leda. However, by employing feminist views on rape, violence, and sexual objectification, it is argued that the selected poems directly emphasize Leda's sense of victimization due to being violated by Zeus in the form of a swan without the ambivalence encountered in male versions of the myth like those by W. B. Yeats, Robert, Graves, D. H. Lawrence, and Rainer Maria Rilke. In those feminist revisions, by contrast, Leda's perspective is more dominant. She is adversely affected by Zeus' violent rape, as she is degraded and therefore neither empowered nor endowed with immortality. Moreover, she is abandoned and lonesome, and she is filled with horror as well as helplessness. The last selected poem even shows that Leda has lost her sanity after her rape. It is suggested, therefore, that these detrimental effects of rape on Leda and her deteriorating psychological state are due to being violated by a male deity, and thus Leda has fallen victim to rape as well as patriarchy in such feminist re-tellings of this Greek myth. Such female renderings of the myth, then, challenge prevailing ambivalent or stereotypical representations by fostering a feminist ideology that rejects patriarchal bias or romanticizing attempts.

Keywords: Leda and the Swan; Modern Poetry; Sexual Objectification; Victimization; Feminism.