3. Life
Tennyson was
born on 6th
August 1809 in
Somersby, Lincoln
shire.
The fourth of
twelve children.
He was the son of
a clergyman. Rev.
George Clayton
Tennyson.
5. He is the second most frequently quoted writer
in The Oxford dictionary of Quotations after
Shakespeare.
• "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have
loved at all”
• "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die”
• "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my
heart is pure”
• "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers”
• "The old order changeth, yielding place to new".
7. The Eagle
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.
8.
9. Alliteration
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
The hard consonant /k/ in the three words.
Could it suggest hardness of the rock and
firmness of the bird?
10. Symbols
Close to the sun in lonely
lands,
Close to the sun - This could
illustrate the status of a person.
In lonely lands – This could
point out how lonely someone
can be in this position.
11. Personification
He clasps the crag with crooked
hands
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.
azure – a deep blue sky blue
colour
12. Simile
The wrinkled sea beneath him
crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
What is the effect of the simile?
13. The Eagle
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.
14. Adjectives
Tennyson used the pairing of two-syllable
adjectives with one-syllable nouns to help keep
the meter of the poem intact.
“crooked hands,”
“lonely lands,”
“azure world,”
“wrinkled sea,”
“mountain walls.”
15. Syllables
He used no word
longer than two
syllables until the last
line.
Thunderbolt
3 syllables
It conveys power
which any eagle
certainly has.
16.
17. This poem has
references to the
ancient Greek
myth of Icarus.
Study that
story, and explain
how you think
knowing it helps
a reader
interpret what
Tennyson is
saying here.
The Sun is symbolic of a god, The eagle of a noble person the sea the ordinary people.
Aeroplanes were not invented at the time the poem was written, the image of the sea crawling was not known to many.
Single rhyme in each stanza—affirms the singleness and aloneness of the eagle.The first stanza shows motionless whereas the second shows movement – crawls, watches and he falls. Motionless to action
