Annals of Language and Literature Volume 1, Issue 1, 2017, PP 32-41 Re-tellings of the Myth of Leda and the Swan: A Feminist Perspective Shadi S. Neimneh, Nisreen M. Sawwa, Marwan M. Obeidat Department of English, Hashemite University, Jordan *Corresponding Author: Shadi S. Neimneh, Department of English, Hashemite University, Jordan Received Date: 20-09-2017 Accepted Date: 07-10-2017 Published Date: 12-10-2017 ABSTRACT 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 INTRODUCTION Order, and Myth‖ (1923), T. S. Eliot praises the mythical method employed in James Joyce's In Euripides' Helen, Helen says: novel Ulysses (1922); it involves ―the parallel to "…people tell a story about Zeus... the Odyssey, and the use of appropriate styles and symbols to each division‖ (p.175), as ―a how he once feathered himself into the way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a likeness of a swan, feigned flight from a shape and a significance to the immense pursuing eagle, panorama of futility and anarchy which is lit upon my mother Leda, and won his contemporary history‖ (p.177). Therefore, way with her." (cited in Kossman, 2001, modernists use mythologies because artists are p. 16, emphasis in original) cited as responsible for fixing the problems which the modernist techniques like subjectivity The use of classical myths like the myth of Leda as well as fragmentation bring about. Since and the swan is remarkably prevalent in the postmodernism is an extension of modernism, modernist and postmodernist period. According myths are equally used by postmodernists to to W. B. Yeats, art which includes mythology give form and order as well. In addition, reflects civilization, as art "seeks to impose postmodernists draw upon myths because they order and comprehensibility upon the diversity like to borrow from the past, thus downplaying and chaos of the experiential world" (Thanassa, the idea of originality in the parody and pastiche 2010, p. 114). Also, in his essay ―Ulysses, Annals of Language and Literature V1 ● I1 ● 2017 32 Re-tellings of the Myth of Leda and the Swan: A Feminist Perspective they practice. Importantly, modernists and paintings and sculptures, which may wrongly postmodernists employ popular myths to suggest that Leda welcomes the swan's sexual negotiate certain ideologies and further certain advances despite her victimization (Olga ideas. In this sense, such renderings and re- Hughes, 2016). Sometimes she is even depicted tellings of those myths differ according to their as having a smiling face while receiving the take on the myth or the position they are swan. Leonardo da Vinci’s and Michelangelo’s expected to communicate. paintings, for example, portray Leda as "an inviting nude figure" (White, 2014, p. 4). In According to Jenny March (2001), the beautiful addition, "Leda" (1921) by the American poet woman Helen of Troy in the Greek myth, "over H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) obviously paints an whom the Greeks and Trojans warred for ten attractive picture of Zeus represented by his "red long years" (p. 457), is said to be the daughter of wings" (p. 23, line 3), "soft breast" (line 6), Zeus and Leda who is the wife of Tyndareus, a "coral feet" (line 7), and "kingly kiss" (line 24), king of Sparta. A princess in Greek mythology, which makes Leda enjoy the intimate encounter Leda is said to have seven children: Castor, with him. Thus, on Leda's part there will be no Timandra, Philonoe, Phoebe, and Clytemnestra regrets anymore "nor old deep memories / to who are fathered by Tyndareus as well as Helen mar the bliss" (lines 26-27). In poetry, there is and Polydeuces, the children of Zeus. Helen was no one unified representation of the encounter born from an egg, as Zeus, in the form of a between Leda and the swan. A number of swan, has seduced Leda and made her pregnant modernist poems in the early twentieth century with Helen. March refers to another myth which ambivalently portray the swan in different ways, explains the birth of Helen, saying that Nemesis focusing on the nature of the swan more than is Helen's mother. Zeus, also in the guise of a Leda or romanticizing the act of rape. While swan, has had sex with Nemesis who has been Hughes argues that ―rape is a violation, a deceit‖ in the form of a goose, and an egg has been since ―[t]here is nothing ambiguous about it‖ produced, as a result. The egg has been given to (2016, para. 1), it is our contention that such a Leda by a shepherd, and Leda has put it in a box claim works better for some versions of this until Helen has hatched out, and thus Leda has myth mainly written by female writers. A raised Helen as though she has been Helen's patriarchal tradition has often portrayed this biological mother (p. 358). So, it is typical of sexual encounter somewhat ambiguously, Zeus in such patriarchal renderings of the myth highlighting the violence of rape yet trying to to disguise himself before mortal women in justify or beautify it. For example, Rainer Maria order to "trick his unwitting quarry, and to evade Rilke's "Leda," published in1908, initially his jealous wife, who was always ready to stresses the swan's deceptive, treacherous nature suspect him of misbehaviour" (p. 792). as well as his apparent lack of self-control: March states that Zeus is infatuated with Leda a When the god, yearning, entered the lot, and on the day he has mated with her, he has swan, swan splendor shattered him. He let flown "into her arms for protection from a himself vanish within its flesh, pursuing eagle" (p. 457); Helen has come out of completely entangled. Trying to fool her, the egg produced as a consequence of that though, he was drawn to the act (2001, p. sexual encounter between Zeus and Leda. 16, lines 1-4) March stresses the popularity of Leda and the swan, not only in ancient art Before the However, Rilke's poem makes Leda unable to Common Era but also in postclassical arts like fully resist the swan's hard attempts to get what painting and literature in which this subject has he loved, for she is "tangled in resisting him" become inspiring. For example, the painters but unable to "withhold" any longer (lines 9- Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Correggio, 10): "He came at her harder,/ and thrusting his Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens, Boucher, and neck through her hand growing weaker and Delacroix, among others, have painted Leda and weaker" (lines 10-11). The consummation of the the swan. In addition, Edmund Spenser's third act makes the swan realize that "feathers were book of the epic poem The Faerie Queene glory" (line 13) as he feels himself inside her (1590) as well as W. B. Yeats' poem "Leda and womb. Therefore, this poem depicts the rape as the Swan" (1923) describe the swan's rape of a glorious act and depicts Leda as succumbing Leda. Thus, this myth is recurrent in various to the swan's will and thus complicit in the periods and literary genres, including poetry, art, sensual act or simply acquiescent. The and culture. ―splendor‖ attributed to the swan (line 3) contributes to the same effect of romanticizing The swan is generally represented as beautiful in 33 Annals of Language and Literature V1 ● I1 ● 2017 Re-tellings of the Myth of Leda and the Swan: A Feminist Perspective the rape. Similarly, in "Leda" Robert Graves patriarchal narratives" (p. 10) and goes counter depicts the violence and horror of rape while to the portrayal of Leda as receptive to the fusing those with lust: swan's sexual advances in Leonardo da Vinci’s Heart, with what lonely fears you ached, and Michelangelo’s paintings.