Foregrounding Analysis of Yeats' Leda and the Swan

Stylistics,a branch of linguistics,has been widely used to analyze poetry in recent years.The minute we mention application of stylistics for poetical analysis,we will have to mention a linguistic term:foregrounding.The term is borrowed by stylistics from art criticism,which distinguishes between foreground and background of a painting.The theory of foregrounding is probably most important theory within analysis,and foregrounding analysis is arguably most important part of stylistic analysis in poetry.Here mainly analyzes foregrounding in poet Leda and Swan.On one hand,the application of foregrounding in poem explains why Leda and Swan is considered by Camille Paglia as the greatest poem of 20th century ;on other hand,the analysis of foregrounding can help readers increase their understanding of poems.