Poetry analysis of The eagle -Lord Tennyson

                                                    Alfred Tennyson gives readers a great bird in a small poem: “The Eagle.” He wrote epic poems and lyrics about grand literary moments, most of which were more fictional than historical. “The Eagle” fits into this mode and, more generally, into the mode of the mid-nineteenth century, when the romantic vision of the world experienced its resurgence at the end of the Enlightenment. Tennyson has sometimes been called an Enlightenment poet, but although he did exhibit some interest in the sciences, his poetry hardly exhibited a scientific mind. The work is quintessentially romantic, and “The Eagle” has only been read as an ambiguous tribute rather than as a treatise on the nature of eagles. The words “clasps,” “crag,” and “crooked” associate the eagle with age: “craggy,” for instance, is still used to describe a lined, age-weathered face. The hard “c” sound that begins each of these words also establishes a hard, sharp tenor to this poem’s tone that fits in with the idea of the eagle’s similarly hard, sharp life. The repetition of first sounds is called alliteration, and Tennyson uses it in this short “fragment” to convey a sense of the eagle’s situation. If there is any question in the reader’s mind.

                                                   here poem line.....

Tells us about the eagle was holding (grip) the crag (high and steep rough rock) with its claws. The poet portray the eagle as if it is described as a human being when he used words like ‘he’ and ‘crooked hands’. The eagle lives in a very high place in the mountains, in lonely place that is away from people.

Content/idea:Therefore, we could say that the poet wants to show us the greatness of the eagle, its speed, power and ability of hunting.

Theme:

Man vs Natural World: 

                  The eagle lives in a place that cannot be easily reached by human beings, and the poet is definitely aware of this. The poet imagines what the eagle's world is like, which means imagines a world without people. Still, the poet can only describe the landscape using human or human-like attributes. "The Eagle" is a classic case of a nature poem that ends up being just as much about the person describing the scenery as anything else.

Strength and Skills:

               First, the eagle remains motionless for most of the poem.  After the eagle has done with searching for its prey, it suddenly ‘falls’ , which means it swoops quickly to attack its prey. The eagle achieves this with almost effortless grace. Great vision, powers of flight, and big talons, these are the eagle’s strength and skills that is trying to be conveyed by the poet.

Symbols :

The Eagle

                         The eagle represents some kind of masculine ideal. Its actions are described very modestly by very four subject-verb pairings: "he clasps," "he stands," "he watches," "he falls." Interestingly, all of these behaviours, including falling, are passive. The eagle never breaks a sweat.

 The Sky                  

                           The world of the sky is like a mirror of the earth, complete with its own "lands." Even parts of the sky located at a relatively short distance from the earth (a thousand feet, perhaps) seem closer to the sun than to us. Nonetheless, we get to imagine what it's like to look down on the water from such a great height.

                                              In last this Poet says that the eagle birds through Power or struggler then most powerful imagines that power structure of society.