ABSTRACT
The effect is to allow readers to encounter this poem's ‘heroic dream’ of longstanding romantic fixation before coming into contact with the heroic nightmare of that same love's capacity for destruction. Although this poem's Homeric dimension provides its title, in fact any specifically Homeric meaning only becomes part of the writing in the last five lines. It would of course be obtuse to say that a number of different women are ‘sung’ about by Homer, especially since this poem declares itself so immediately as a love poem; and Helen's implied presence is that of the mythic figure whose beauty remains unparalleled through all later literary tradition. WBY was familiar with both the Iliad and the Odyssey from adolescence onwards, and as a poet he was a veteran of Homeric reference and resource, particularly with regard to Helen.
