The Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson

About the Author

Alfred Lord Tennyson was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1809, to a middle-class family with
noble and royal ancestry. Tennyson and two of his elder brothers wrote poetry in their teens and
published their first collection of poems when Alfred was just 17 years old.

Tennyson was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during the major part of Queen
Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular British poets up-to-date. His most popular
short lyrics are ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’,’ Break, Break, Break’, ‘Tears Idle Tears’,
and ‘Crossing the Bar’.

Lord Tennyson died at the age of 83, in 1892.

Themes
Beauty, Power and Majesty of Nature
This theme is highlighted through the physical appearance and behaviour of the eagle. When
behaviour is considered, the eagle seems to be majestic and superior due to its closeness to the
sun and living at a high elevation.
When considering physical appearance, the eagle has strong and sharp talons for holding onto
prey along with sharp teeth and eyes. It also has more power, energy and swiftness on prey like
a thunderstorm.
Thus, all these facts help us to prove the poem is about the glory and majesty of nature.

Freedom and Solitude

The eagle is shown as a symbol of freedom. The eagle is pictured “close to the sun” as a symbol
of freedom that the eagle possesses by flying higher than the other birds.
The area of the sky the eagle owns is shown by the “azure world”.
In the phrase “lonely lands”, loneliness implies detachment from the ordinary world.

Authoritative Power
The eagle also symbolizes the lifestyle of high authorities. The eagle reminds us of the nature of
kings and emperors who do not move with the rest of the citizens due to their high status. It also
shows the social gap found between the civilians and the higher authorities.
This poem also shows us an example of criminals and thugs who do not care about ethics and
social values.
The eagle is said to live surrounded by mountains. This too indicates a king living in a fortress.
By taking the image of the eagle, the poet might have attempted to glance at the reality of the
world or human society.

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This also brings out the wild law, ‘survival of the fittest’. Much like the strongest animals in the
wild survives, it is similar to human society as well. When the historical records are analysed, we
can often see authoritative powers who ruled empires and kingdoms just emerging alone, while
crushing down every opponent.

Additional Themes of the Poem

● The Cycle of Life
● Old Age
● Loneliness
● Egoism
● Masculine power

Poetic Techniques
● Personification - The poet humanizes the Eagle by using the pronoun ‘he’, thereby
extending importance and power to the eagle.
● Visual imagery - the environment is vividly explained, enabling the reader to admire the
scene well. It visualizes the scenery within the reader's mind creatively.
● Metaphor
● Simile
● Symbolism - the bird itself is taken as a symbol of power. Moreover, its appearance, pose
and behaviour enhance this show of power.
● Hyperbolic phrases

Appreciation

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem is a precise conceptual delivery of man and nature as suggested
by the usage of symbols: the eagle, crag, sea and sky. The thematic concerns are open to wide
interpretation with the ambiguity of the poem that invokes philosophical questioning of the cycle
of life undergone by man and how the poet finds it difficult to think of a world excluding humans.
Thus, he expresses a contentious opinion provoking the radical debate about whether man is
above or below nature.

In the first stanza, the poet creates a setting where a lone eagle stands on a crag of a mountain
overlooking the sea with the sky surrounding it as a backdrop. The visual imagery is further
elaborated with the colour ‘azure’ describing the beauty of the sky. The term ‘lonely lands’ could
be referring to the immense stretches of sea and sky. The image is continued in the next line with

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the metaphor ‘azure world’. This depicts a vast space where the bird could fly free unopposed as
we know that the eagle is a powerful creature with sharp vision and strength as a predator.

Through the eyes of this powerful predator, the sea below him is a ‘wrinkled sea’ that ‘crawls
beneath him’. The sea is far below so the poet describes it peculiarly. The poet creates a strong
impression with the phrase ‘sea beneath him’. It awakens the sense that even the very powerful,
immense sea is under the eagle.

The fact that the creature stands on a crag shows how unreachable he is to man. The poet thus
creates an image that portrays the eagle as a creation of nature which is also protected by nature.
In the line “From his mountain walls’’, ‘walls’ suggest protection for the eagle, which lives in a
place almost inaccessible to humans, protected and unreachable in a beautiful azure space like
the sky and a large area of sea. The last line, ‘like a thunderbolt he falls’, is an understatement
because an eagle does not just fall off a cliff; it would dive to catch its prey or reach a place where
his sharp vision caught some attention.

Throughout the poem, however, we see that the poet has attempted to humanize the eagle
through the use of pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘his’. Instead of using ‘claws’ which seems like a more
appropriate term to describe a bird, he uses ‘hands’. Similarly, the actions of a bird are also termed
differently: ‘stands’ instead of ‘perches’ and ‘falls’ instead of ‘dives’. Thus, the poet could be using
the eagle as a symbol of masculinity; a great man powerfully portrayed as possessing a very
sharp vision and strength. Man is an excellent and clever predator but, a predator nevertheless;
with the ability to destroy somebody else’s life. In the setting created by the poet, he is passive till
the climax when he dives like a great man who keeps his powers in reserve till the right moment.
This man is not just a man but he is transformed into a superhero living at a very high vantage
point securely and in control of his world.

The debate between man and nature and who has the ultimate power to control is discussed
with subtlety. The sea, sky, and mountains are all elements of nature while the sea and sky
symbolize freedom. Within such limitless freedom, the ‘mountain walls’ other than offering
protection constrain man’s freedom (unlike the bird who could fly above all). The eagle is adapted
to flying in any direction but when considering the eagle as a man, he falls off the cliff. Ultimately
what controls man is gravity, which is a force of nature. Tennyson thus places nature above man.
Contradicting this viewpoint, another perspective is how the poet creates an imaginary world, but
without the ability to exclude humans. Thus, humans are also integral to nature. Then the first
argument gets revived when we see how nature in turn controls man who cannot challenge the
changes he has to undergo.

‘the wrinkled sea beneath him crawls’,

Although ambiguous, it could suggest personification of man and his life cycle, because ‘wrinkled’
suggests old age and ‘crawls’ suggests infancy. Thus, the impending philosophical debate is also
then open to the reader about whether man is above or below nature.

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 ● Eagle sample extracts with hints:
1. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls (line 4)
We see a contrast between old ("wrinkled") and young ("crawls") in this line. Everything in the
world below is either too old or too young.

2. He watches from his mountain walls (line 5)

The eagle continues to "stand watch" over the landscape. The eagle's vision is a kind of skill – it
can see things from much farther away than humans can. Still, the poem keeps the eagle's coolest
skills in reserve, to build suspense.

3. And like a thunderbolt he falls (line 6)

Like a dive-bombing fighter plane, the eagle careens off the crag, and he relies on gravity to build
incredible speed. His flight is pure energy. The verb "falls" pairs with "stands" at the end of the
first stanza. "Standing" and "falling" are opposite actions.