The Eagle
By: Lord Tennyson Alfred
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls:
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
- Meanings of words:Clasps: hold with force and power.
Crag: a high, steep stone.
Crooked: opposite of straight.
Crooked hand: with iron fingers.
Ringed:
to surround it or connect things with a ring.
Azure:
the blue color.
Wrinkled:
lines on the skin.
Crawl:
moving slowly like a baby on hands and feet.
Thunderbolt: fast, violent, powerful, and lighting with loud sound.
The poem is divided into 2 Stanza's with 3 lines each. And there are an
average of 9 feet a line. The rhyme scheme is every last word in each stanza
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rhyme's.
Analysis:
Line 1: 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 about why we should care to read
about the habits of an eagle in the wild, Tennyson settles it at the end of the line,
where he uses the poetic technique of personification in talking about the eagle’s
“hands.” When Tennyson makes the association of the eagle’s claws with human
hands, he lets us know that the story of the eagle is not just a study of an animal
in its natural environment, but that, symbolically, he is telling us about human
beings. Because of the implications of the descriptions mentioned above, we can
assume that the eagle represents an elderly person.
Line 2: The idea that is presented to the reader in the phrase “close to the sun”
could be expressed more directly, but in using these words Tennyson
accomplishes two goals. First, by bringing the sun in to describe how high up in
the air the eagle is, he uses hyperbole, or exaggeration, to associate the eagle
with a sense of grand majesty. Tennyson lived during the Enlightenment, a time
when scientific curiosity and learning were greatly valued, and as an educated
man he would not have believed that an eagle’s altitude could reach anywhere
near the sun’s, but this association makes the eagle seem, like the sun, more
powerful than anything of this earth. Placing the eagle near the sun also alludes
to the myth of Icarus. An allusion is a reference to something else, specifically
another literary work, so that readers can use knowledge of that other work to
sharpen their understanding. In Greek mythology, Icarus and his father Daedalus
escaped from imprisonment on the Isle of Crete by making wings out of wax and
feathers and flying away, but Icarus became too ambitious and flew close to the
sun; the wax melted, and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. By placing the
winged eagle near the sun, Tennyson seems to be implying that it may be too
confident of its own ability,... »
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Tennyson employed the pairing of two-syllable adjectives with one-syllable
nouns to help keep the meter of the poem intact. Indeed, Tennyson used no other
adjective-noun combination, just “crooked hands,” “lonely lands,” “azure
world,” “wrinkled sea,” and “mountain walls.” In fact, he used no word longer
than two syllables until the last line of the poem where the three syllables of
“thunderbolt” stand out to the reader, much as a loud clap of thunder would draw
one’s notice. It conveys power, which any eagle certainly has.
The only thing that really bothers me about the poem is the idea of an eagle
falling like a thunderbolt. If the poem was called “The Falcon” it would make
more sense to me as I can easily picture a Peregrine Falcon falling like a
thunderbolt. Despite this seeming inaccuracy the imagery of the poem is what
stays with me and what makes the short six lines so poetic. Whatever you call it
the poem is one for the ages.
Some of the imagery is with sight and sound. For sight they are “Close
to the sun”, “Azure world”, azure mean the blue color in a clear daytime sky. “
Wrinkled sea beneath”, and “mountain walls”. The only one that was imagery of
sight & sound was “like a thunderbolt he falls”.
The figures of speech are “wrinkled sea”, which means the waves in the
ocean. And one simile is “like a thunderbolt he falls”, it is saying how fast an
eagle dives.
The poems theme is how an eagle can fly so high and dive so fast (power). And
how free an eagle is (freedom). I thought that this was a nice poem. I like the
way he uses the words. I think the rhyming scheme he used was appropriate,
where every last word rhymed.
- Figures of speech:1-Personification:
In the first line the poet uses (he) to the eagle.
“With crooked hand” humans only have hands.
The poet also describes the sea with wrinkled, which is the description of an old
man skin.
The sea crawls as the baby’s movement.
The land described as lonely, which is a description of the human.
2-simile:
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The eagle and the thunderbolt and the similarity are that both of them are very
fast.
3- Imagery:Crooked hand:
Describing the eagle’s hand makes the poem more vivid.
- Paraphrase:Line 1
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

The eagle holds on to a cliff with claws that look like "crooked" or
deformed human hands.
Line 2
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
The eagle is really high up there, and all by himself. So far up that it appears to
be near the same height as the sun.
Line 3
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The eagle is surrounded by blue skies. The blue sky forms a "ring" or
circle around the eagle.
Line 4
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

The sea looks "wrinkled" like a shirt that needs ironing. We can't help
thinking of a sheet of tin foil that has been crumpled up and then spread
out again.
Line 5
He watches from his mountain walls,

The eagle performs the passive action of watching along with all his
standing and grasping. If the eagle had written a journal entry for his day
so far, it might read, "Today I stood on the cliff…held on to the
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rock…looked around…thought about letting go of the rock, but then how
would I stand? So I kept holding on…stood…and looked around."
Line 6
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Finally, all our careful observation of the eagle pays off. In a magnificent
show of grace and speed, he dives off the cliff and shoots downward in a
straight line. Maybe he's seen something to eat or else just wants to stretch
his wings.
The Eagle: Style
“The Eagle: A Fragment” is written in two stanzas of three lines each and utilizes
the iambic-tetrameter form of meter. Iambic meter is structured in units of two
syllables where the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. If the
stresses are identified, the first line appears as follows:
Heclasps / thecrag / withcrook / edhands;
The speaker in this poem admires the eagle.
The first stanza is about the eagle’s quietness and stillness. The eagle is very
powerful from the way he stands. The words clasps, crag, and crooked indicate
the strength of the eagle. The poet uses the word clasps instead of hold because it
gives more power. The poet uses the word clasps because it carries a lot of force
and power than the word hold. The eagle is very high on the top of the mountain
as if he looks close to the sun. He looks at the people from the top as if he is a
king or a God. He is not lonely, the land is lonely. He is part of the world and his
nature. He stands quietly with confidence.
The second stanza describes the eagle’s movement. The eagle is up and looks
down to the sea as it has tiny lines, which are the waves, as a wrinkled skin for
an old man. He sees the sea moves very slowly as a crawling baby. We know
that the mountain is his home from the word (wall). He falls quickly as a
thunderbolt when he sees something he wants or when he sees a prey. His
movement is sudden, fast, violent, and powerful. The first stanza ends with the
word (stands) and the second stanza ends with the word (falls), these two words
show the difference between the eagle’s quietness and movement.
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- The rhyme scheme:He clasps the crag with crooked hands; a
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
a
Ringed with the azure world, he stands. a
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls: b
He watches from his mountain walls,
b
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
B
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