Tennyson
Ulysses' analysis

Alfred Lord
Tennyson was a very famous poet of Victorian period; he wrote his
personal version of Ulysses in 1833, less than three weeks after the
death of Arthur Henry Hallam, his best friend of ever: in fact after
his friend's death, Tennyson's style of writing has completely
changed becoming full of despair and the same time consolation.

Tennyson's
poem is based on a combination of Homer's and Dante's version of
Ulysses; but differently from these versions, Tennyson's Ulysses
returned to Ithaca, he is very old and completely fed up of his
current way of living.

Right
from the start  the reader can understand that Ulysses hasn't a
positive vision of his life, in fact all the adjectives of the 1^st
lines have a negative connotation:

• he is defined
  "idle"(in contrast with his past busyness). 1^st line

  
  

• "still hearth",
  "barren crags". 2^nd line

  
  

• he's even bothered by
  the fact that he has an "aged wife". 3^rd line

  
  

• "savage
  race". 4^th
  line

  
  

It is possible to
notice two particular comparisons: the first one is more similar to a
contrast and it is between Ulysses and his current life, he feels
alone and the people who surround him(wife and race) seem not to
understand him and his desire to act.

The other comparison
is between actual Ulysses and the past one; differently from the
current one who is unable to do anything, when he was young he was a
very active person, he was always involved into travels and
interesting adventures.