Siren Song Analysis

We're a long way from the eighth century BC, so it's fitting that Atwood would choose to bring "Siren Song" up to speed with free verse, rather than the normal dactylic hexameter that we usually se...

Our speaker of "Siren Song" is a… Siren, so we get to hear what these ladies are all about directly from the source. No need to call Odysseus in on it this time. But she's not the kind of Siren f...

In terms of setting, we're going old-school in a new way with "Siren Song." We might at first imagine the kind of "picturesque and mythical" island Homer paints for us in The Odyssey when we hear f...

Maybe you were expecting "Siren Song" to sound more like, well, a song. That seems reasonable enough. But the fact that we never hear a real "song" per se is what makes this poem, and the purpose b...

We don't really hear all that much about Sirens anymore. But for those of us who are vaguely familiar with Greek mythology or The Odyssey, the name might ring a bell. So we may need to refresh our...

You'll notice that Atwood has a lot of poems with "Song" in the title. That's not to say that they sound singsong in any way, but rather they sound like songs because they're lyrical explorations o...

"Siren Song" sounds pretty simple, once we understand what a Siren is and what they usually do. So, if we have a little background in The Odyssey or Greek myths, the poem makes perfect sense. The w...

Made in Canada, Atwood has attracted a big following across the globe with over fifty volumes of poetry. (Source.)Atwood talks more about those one-dimensional ideas of women and writing here. (Sou...

We know that Sirens are supposed to be sexy, so of course there are some sexual innuendos in "Siren Song." But there's no sex actually happening, since anyone who hears the song is dead. Oh yeah, t...