Right from the title all ordinary readers understand who is the poem about: Ulysses. He should be the heroic king coming back after his difficult voyage, but Tennyson's Ulysses is not  like that. He is an aged man and his reign is infertile and plenty of rocks. His wife is not the mythological Penelope, a beautiful and attractive woman. She is old too, he does not like her. People look like savages and they have no equal laws, no rules. They just think about sleeping, eating and spending what they have. They do not recognize him. Ulysses cannot rest after his long and difficult travel, because he is tormented by the sad vision of his country. He is going to drink trying to forget what is tormenting him during all his life. He knows that it is at the end and that it has been really difficult, both for him and his dead mates. He reminds when he became famous, a name: after the tempest  caused by Gods. Than the novel goes on with the description of Ulysses' story. He has always been moved by curiosity, by the will of knowledge, but his expectations are newer satisfied. He is drunk and remembers the battle of Troy, with all his equals, but it is too much time ago. It seems to own to another life.