The Eagle

The authorial, ideological, and historical context entwine; an expanded understanding of the poem ties together Tennyson’s life, beliefs, and the events he witnessed. According to the Poetry Foundation's overview of Tennyson, he and Arthur Hallam met the Spanish revolutionaries in the Pyrenees, and the numerous eagles around the mountains inspired the fragment. The poem relates to a moment in Tennyson’s life, and that moment connects to his ideology; he was helping Jose Maria Torrijos y Uriarte and his fighters battle King Ferdinand VII.

Tennyson’s poems about the oppression in Poland—they were battling Russian rule—suggest Tennyson’s ideological position for this historic occasion was on the side of the underdog or the oppressed. The eagle represents tyranny, and his hands are “crooked” (Line 1) because he’s corrupt. The eagle thinks of himself as high and mighty, but he lacks popular support, so he’s “in lonely lands” (Line 2). Like a tyrannical power, the eagle preys on his subjects or “wrinkled sea” (Line 4), and the eagle attacks like a vengeful god with a “thunderbolt” (Line 6). Conversely, the thunderbolt, the power of the people or a higher power, defeats the eagle.

At the same time, Tennyson’s bond with Queen Victoria and the English government put him on the side of the oppressor. John Batchelor writes, “Britain in the 1850s was the most powerful civilisation in the world” (395). England was the world’s foremost superpower. It was a global empire that ruled India, Jamaica, Australia, and large parts of Africa. The English played the role of the eagle, and the wrinkled sea was the world that England preyed on and dominated. England was like a god or “thunderbolt” (Line 6)—it could strike wherever it wanted. Michael Millgate identifies “too-strident patriotism and exaltation of war” (19) in Tennyson's poetry, and perhaps “The Eagle” exemplifies his pride in English hegemony.

The poem also relates to Tennyson’s proximity to death and demise. Arthur Hallam’s sudden passing keenly impacted Tennyson. Like the eagle, Hallam—or any person who feels like the world is at their fingertips—has lofty powers and aspirations. Yet people—like the eagle—are fallible. A miraculous “thunderbolt” (Line 6) can knock them from their perch and bring them down when least expected.