The Eagle

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1851

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a central figure in the Romantic Movement and a key influence on Tennyson. Shelley’s well-known lyric poem shares many of the same themes as “The Eagle.” Shelley, too, focuses on power, empire, and vulnerability through the mythological “Ozymandias, King of Kings” (Line 10). Similar to the eagle—or one interpretation of what happens to the eagle—Ozymandias falls and meets his demise. He yields to “decay” (Line 12), and his environment turns “boundless and bare” (Line 13). To construct his portrait of the dilapidated king, Shelley uses imagery and alliteration—two key literary devices that Tennyson also features in “The Eagle.”

“The Lotos-eaters” by Alfred Tennyson (1832)

With “The Lotos-eaters” Tennyson once again uses a literary device, allusion. The title and theme link to events in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey (circa 8th century BCE). Odysseus, the poem’s protagonist, and his soldiers arrive on a tiny island where the inhabitants eat plants that make them laidback and happy. Critics tend to view the poem as a critique of imperialism, with the foreign land representing a potential colony, and Odysseus and company symbolizing hypothetical invaders. As with one interpretation of “The Eagle,” Tennyson arguably points out the fallibility of trying to conquer populations. In Tennyson’s poem, no one rescues Odysseus’s men. They’re trapped and, like the eagle, battling enervation and vulnerabilities.

“The crowd at the ball game” by William Carlos Williams (1938)

The 20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams was a part of the Imagism movement; in “The crowd at the ball game,” Williams presents a dangerous picture of, as the title implies, crowds. As with the crawling, “wrinkled sea” (Line 4) in “The Eagle,” the crowd is a threat. Conversely, the crowd is as predatory as the eagle. While Tennyson uses two melodious tercets to convey his smooth picture of the powerful eagle, Williams features jagged, unrhymed couplets in his illustration of the cacophonous, unruly general public. Additionally, Williams’s poem includes symbolism, with baseball and the crowd representing the relationship between tyrannical leaders and the people they captivate.

Further Literary Resources

The Crow by Ted Hughes (1970)

The Crow is a book-length series of poems by the famous 20th-century English poet and writer Ted Hughes. While the death of Arthur Hallam prompted Tennyson to compose a fair amount of poetry, the suicides of Hughes’s first wife, the poet Sylvia Plath, and his romantic partner Assia Wevill, influenced the strident tone of The Crow. Like Tennyson’s eagle, Hughes’s crow vacillates between power and precarity. At times, the crow appears like a singular predator; in other moments, the crow falls victim to numerous desires and weaknesses. As with Tennyson, Hughes uses imagery to create a gritty, menacing picture of the mythological bird.

“The greatest poet of the 19th century” by John D. Rosenberg (1973)

Rosenberg’s article provides a summary of Tennyson’s legacy—particularly how later famous writers viewed him. Rosenberg includes quips by James Joyce and W. H. Auden, and he counters any temptation to dismiss Victorian poetry. Rosenberg shows how Tennyson influenced future canonized poets, like T. S. Eliot, and reveals why Tennyson isn’t as stuffy as some make him out to be. As “The Eagle” demonstrates, Tennyson could be quite modern and ahead of his time, as he anticipated Imagism by almost half a century.

“Tennyson and Hallam” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2011)

Coates’s brief post engenders an open discussion about one specific aspect of Tennyson’s life: His relationship with his best friend Arthur Hallam. Coates addresses the idea that the two men were in love and thinks about how men could love one another platonically but not sexually. Like the eagle, Hallam suddenly fell, and his shocking death had a visceral impact on Tennyson and his work.