-Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson-

-Analysis lines 18-32-

At line 18 Ulysses makes a reflection about himself. He states that he has become part of all he has met: he is aware that relationships with other allowed him to know himself. His whole existence and knowledge are a result of such experiences he shared with others.

He has now very little time to live, his living-experience is just as an arch, a segment, at first rising and then simply falling down to the ground. The world seems to him something unknown that he wants, and must, travel, although the margins of his knowledge always shift . To pause is to Ulysses an torture. He feels like a rusty blade that is not used anymore, he wants instead to be useful, to act: to him life is not simply survival, but experience and action (such theme is the same introduced by Shakespeare in Hamlet's monologue).

Ulysses longs for news, something more that death. He believes that it would be vile to stop and just survive hoarding and storing. The man's "grey spirit" (line 30), old and tired, is full of desire, he must follow "knowledge like a sinking star" (line 21), he must travel beyond the border of human thought to reach the truth and comprehend the essence of life, he can't avoid that.