Home Page

Assignment

• Reading:
  
• Robert Frost "Mending Wall"
  
• Packet 1b-2 & "Leda & the Swan," "Leda"
• Writing:
Questions on "Leda and the Swan" and "Leda"
1. What myth do these poems deal with? How does that myth relate to the Odyssey? To 's death?
2. What is the focus of "Leda and the Swan"? Of "Leda"? How do the titles relate to these foci?
3. Why does Yeats describe the swan as "feathered glory" and "the brute blood of the air"? How does this relate to the swan's identity?
4. How would you answer Yeats' last question? How does Van Duyn in "Leda"?
5. What motivates the swan in the two poems? How do the motives differ?
6. How does Van Duyn contrast Leda's fate in "men's stories" with her actual fate? How do artists go about selecting the portions of life they depict? Why?
   
   

Questions on "Mending Wall"

1. In what ways do "Good fences make good neighbors"?
2. In what ways do they not?
3. What is it that doesn't like a wall?
4. Why do the men repair the fence?