The Eagle

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1851

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Eagle as a Symbol of Colonialism and Empire

The eagle represents the British empire because, like the eagle, England symbolizes power and predation. During Tennyson’s lifetime, England had no rival. It was “in lonely lands” (Line 1) as the world’s largest superpower. As with the eagle, England could seemingly strike at will. It ruled India and Jamaica, and it had colonies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Africa. From 1839-42, it flooded the Chinese economy with opium when China took a stand against purchasing England products. The conflict became known as the Opium War. Protected by the English Channel, England “watches from his mountain walls” (Line 5) or contemplates the world from its confined kingdom. England doesn’t possess a literal “thunderbolt” (Line 6), but it has the resources to seize nations and peoples.

While Tennyson demonstrates his patriotism and support for England’s empire in poems like “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" (1852), he critiques colonialism and domination in poems like “The Lotos-eaters” (1832). Thus, the eagle can also represent the flaws of England’s prowess. There is something “crooked” (Line 1) about England and its imperialism. It's in “lonely lands” (Line 1) because it lacks allies. The nations it dominates are the “wrinkled sea” (Line 4), and, eventually, the sea or something else will cut down England and its unsustainable dominions.

The Eagle as a Symbol of Human Frailty

Tennyson explores the themes of human frailty in a fair amount of his poems. In In Memoriam, Tennyson’s speaker declares, “Thou madest man, he knows not why / He thinks he was made not to die” (Lines 10-11). The ego of the eagle matches the ego of the “madest man"; each comes across as invincible and in control. For relatively privileged men like Tennyson and his best friend Arthur Hallam, the world represents a playground—their “mountains walls” (Line 5)— and there aren’t many restrictions on where they can go and do. If they want to travel to the Pyrenees and help Spanish rebels, they have the resources to do so.

A person’s strong belief in themself can emphasize the fundamental vulnerability of human nature. A singular human can’t remain powerful forever. Eventually, “like a thunderbolt he falls” (Line 6). The eagle symbolizes the polarizing human elements of force and frailty, and Tennyson highlights the latter by spending most of the poem on the former. For five lines, the speaker concentrates on the splendid authority of the eagle, so when the bird suddenly falls, its fragile symbolism snaps into existence, as the eagle/human turns out to be vulnerable to the external world after all. Thus, even the most powerful forces and beings are subject to the natural laws and cycles of birth and death, creation and destruction.

The Wrinkled Sea as a Symbol for the Power of the General Population, or Human Flaws

If the eagle symbolizes the powerful but ultimately mortal human, it’s reasonable to argue the “wrinkled sea beneath him” (Line 4) represents the common person or general humanity. The imagery may not seem complementary at first. The wrinkles make humans appear messy or not very clean. What they’re doing—crawling—adds to the lowly perspective. Humans are underdeveloped or infantile. They don’t stand proud like the eagle, but they keep low to the ground as if they lack the power to lift themselves and join the eagle on “his mountain walls” (Line 5).

From another perspective, the wrinkled and crawling symbolism compliments humans. They’re “wrinkled” (Line 4) because there are all types of humans; they’re not a monolithic, undifferenced mass. Instead, each person brings unique traits to the general population or sea. They contribute their wrinkles to the human race. The crawling isn’t degrading but functional. Humans stay covert and stealthy, so they’re not targets like the eagle. In the finale, the reader can claim that the eagle “falls” (Line 6) into the sea and becomes a part of it. Viewed from Tennyson’s historical context, the sea could symbolize strength in numbers or revolutionary fighters rising up and toppling the monarch/eagle. Here, the sea is the source of the thunderbolt, and the people assert their potency by dethroning the royal bird.