An Irish poet and perhaps the most representative of the modernist poets, W.B. Yeats has offered much to the English literary canon. He is known not only for his contributions to British but also Irish literature and was an irreplaceable part of the Irish Literary Revival. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923.
His poetry has been seminal in the modernist literary tradition and has transformed the way poetry itself is understood. For instance, compositions such as The Second Coming and A Prayer for My Daughter have become some of the most prominent 20th-century works.
Of these poems, Leda and The Swan remains one of his most-read works. This poem is essentially a retelling of a Greek story in which Leda is raped by Zeus, who takes the shape of a swan. Yeats's composition is a traditional sonnet in iambic pentameter.
