A Comparison of Tennyson’s “The Eagle” and McCaig’s “The Sparrow”

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A Comparison of Tennyson's "The Eagle" and McCaig's "The Sparrow"

The immediate thing that strikes me, when comparing Tennyson's "eagle" and McCaig's "sparrow", is the great contrast in length between the two poems.

In just two verses, Tennyson manages to convey the pure majesty of the eagle in its natural habitat, following the instinct that has driven it to hunt its prey like countless generations before. He very much admired the style of writing used by the Italian poets of his generation. He employed this style, known as Terza Rima, which, in Italian, means three rhymes.

McCaig, however, has used a very ordinary style of writing and four times the amount of words to evoke an image of the common but dignified sparrow.

The inspiration for Tennyson's poem came from his viewing, at first hand, an eagle whilst travelling through America. His poem shows a keen sense of observation and he must have admired what he was witnessing, to be able to express so vividly what he saw.

The Sparrow, which is a totally different type of composition from the Eagle, probably tells us that the poets have had very contrasting sources of inspiration.

Alfred Lord Tennyson was Poet Laureate and a great patriot. He wrote a poem for Queen Victoria in 1851. He wrote traditional rhyming poetry and was very popular and widely read in his day. When reading his poem, we get a great feeling that the Eagle is like a God. The final line confirms this by comparing the Eagle with the Greek God, Zeus, "And like a thunderbolt he falls". Earlier in the poem he used strong words, eg "clasps", which tells us he has a mighty grip. Alliteration is a device used very effectively in this poem. "He clasps the crag with crooked hands". In my opinion, alliteration here gives a sense of strength to the first line.
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Tennyson encourages us to relate to the bird by personifying the eagle. He does this by saying the bird has "hands". The Eagle is said to be at the top of the food chain and this just adds to the awe of Tennyson's subject choice, also the sea, the mountains and the very sky are portrayed to be his domain. This is demonstrated by "Close to the sun in lonely land". Ring'd with the Azure world he stands". The poem also suggests that the sea is his slave by using the phrase "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls".
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