Tennyson's Ulysses: analysis (first part)

Tennyson has written this poem as a dramatic monologue. It's an unrhymed, blank verse written in an iambic pentameter. The poem is based on a combination of Homer's account in the Odissey with Dante's version of the sUlysses' story. Nevertheless Tennyson presents Ulysses in a different way: he is neither a young, brave man who travells around the world, nor a sinner who never come back to Ithaca: here the protagonist is an old king who has just returned to his homeland. Right from the first lines we can understan Ulysses doen't feel at home in his own counrty: indeed he doesn't like the place where he lives ("still hearth", "barren crags", "an aged wife", "unequal laws unto a savage race"). In Ithaca people are wild and savage because they are ruled by "unequal laws" like animals. The main character is different from the others who lived in the desolate island: whereas people of Ithaca are inactive ("still hearth"), he is a dynamic person.
As an adventurer, Ulysses is always on voyages and expeditions with a ‘hungry heart.' Through the ‘rainy Hyades,' or the ‘windy Troy,' he has got an opportunity to expose himself to different nations and get accustomed to various traditions and cultures. He has also ‘drunk delight of battle,' which further highlights his longing. This produces the imagery of celebration and yearning. When Ulysses says, "I am a part of all that I have met.", he tells the reader how he not only enjoys travelling but also gets adapted to various things he comes across. He wants not only to explore but also to learn more, to gain more ‘knowledge'. By knowledge he means not only what a person has acquired during his life but the result of relationship between people, cities and experience. It is only when he is travelling that the ‘margin' of the globe provokes him to go further and discover all that lies from one end of the horizon to the other. The repetition of the word words ‘forever,' emphasizes the endlessness of Ulysses' desire for adventuring more rather than preferring to be just an ‘idle king.'