The Sound of Words What did you notice about the language in this poem?
Did you notice the rhyme in each stanza—hands, lands, stands and crawls, walls, falls? Did you notice the repe-
tition of the “k” sound in clasps, crag, and crooked? This
repetition of sounds (especially at the beginning of
words) is called alliteration.
9. Which other line of this poem uses alliteration?
a. line 2
b. line 3
c. line 6
The answer is line 2, which repeats the l sound in
“lonely lands.”
Picture Language You may have noticed another poetic device at work in
this poem. In line 1, the poet tells us that the eagle
(“he”) “clasps” the rock “with crooked hands.” Do
eagles have hands? No, they do not; but Tennyson gives
the eagle human characteristics. When an animal is
given human characteristics, or when a inanimate thing
(like a rock, for example) is given animate characteris-
tics (human or animal), it is called personification.
10. Which other line of this poem uses
personification?
a. line 2
b. line 4
c. line 6
The other example of personification is found in
line 4, where the sea “crawls” like a baby or a turtle.
Here’s a memory test:
11. Line 6, “And like a thunderbolt he falls,” uses
which of the following poetic devices?
a. personification
b. simile
c. irony
– F I N D I N G M E A N I N G I N L I T E R AT U R E – 1 4 0
This line uses b, a simile that compares the eagle
to a thunderbolt. What is the effect of this comparison?
12. The comparison of the eagle to a thunderbolt
makes the reader think of the eagle as
