ALFRED LORD TENNYSON, Ulysses (1842)

Poem’s Analysis.

The poem deals with Ulysses’ life many years after his coming back in Ithaca.  

The poem is singled out in three different sections.

The first section informs the reader about who is Ulysses and his psychology. It starts with Ulysses’ life presentation. Now he’s old and he’s already rejoined his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope, taking care of his kingdom’s administrative business. He is totally satisfied of his previous life because he completely lived, moved by his ideals. He loved and suffered but always with people who really loved him and would have never abandoned.  And in this way he’s become someone: making efforts and experiencing for what he really want.

Instead, he’s not happy of his today’s life: he’s living with and old wife and he’s doling goods to a savage race. Then he starts an deepening of what he’s just said: how become a noble man and what he did during his travels.

In line 13 “much” is put at the beginning, so the reader’s attention is moved from the centre to the start: the reader comes in contact with both Ulysses’ personality and the way in which the country’s people organized their lives. Each one knows him/herself in the relations with the others and each identity is just a piece of our being , because you have to dig deeper and deeper to grasp it at all.

In line 15 Ulysses underlines that he had always taken honor of his experiences, that is you have to try experiencing on yourself in order to become someone great. Then, in the next lines he’s still supporting the experiences’ importance: you are your experiences’ product, nothing else; there are no origins, but only constructions. An in line 19 he uses the arch’s metaphor. At Ulysses’ time there were no guns, but arches, the arms in which there’s a tension, that is the archer’s energy that he’s put on the act.

And in these lines comes out that his consideration about the other is very strong: he’s always putting them in everything, like “with  my peers”.

The “untravell’d whose margin fades” is linked to the searching and the mystery’s attraction on humans. This is what solicits humankind to know the world, that is a sort of widening mind’s horizons.  Secondly there’s the boarders’ concept: it is very labile and there’s the desire to move forward, to explore the seas. But this kind of travel will never end. This is the typical Ulysses’ personality, known as the hero.  

Therefore in this first sequence of the first section comes out Ulysses like someone who had experienced both love and suffer, and who’s unable to rest due to his travel’s dependence.

Then, in the second sequence Ulysses’ romanticism comes out. He speaks about himself like he were a weapon that bights with the light. The way in which he deals with time is the one of his contemporaneity, which was used to measuring time with nature.  And in line 30 comes out his suffering for his desirers which are represented by the romantic image of the sinking stars. But his desirer’s is too much: following his knowledge until reaching the infinite. Therefore Ulysses is feeling the infinite tension emphasized again in line 31 “the utmost bound of human thought”.

Moving on to the second section, the reader finds from the beginning its shortness due to its layout. In this one there’s a change of the character. Indeed, it’s still dealing with Ulysses, but there’s Telemachus’ introduction. Ulysses’ son appears as one of Ulysses’ propriety because of the idea of possession that comes out from all the alliterations “mine” and “own”. Then, it is verified what has already come out from Ulysses’ personality in the first section. Indeed, he’s looking for the power, and the scepter and the island are the metaphors for. But they represent the king and queen’s one, that is the lands and the materials goods. But this isn’t what Ulysses wants, differently from Victorians. Indeed, the Victorian Age is known as the Victorian Compromises too: they wanted to appear in way which is not how they really are; for instance, they were full of brothels but in literature there wasn’t even allowed to use the noun “leg” because it could remind sex.

For Ulysses being the king of a population who embodies these values was really difficult. Indeed he uses the word “labour” in order to highlight his physical and psychological demanding effort. They were “rugged” and he had to “subdue them to the useful and the good”, like Oratio’s idea to make people mild, that is miscere utile dulcis. But his son is too attached to his duties in order to not be wrong. Telemachus is Victorians’ embodiment and his father takes the distances from in line 43: “He works is work, I mine”, with a big emphasis on the adjective mine.

Last but not least is the third section about Ulysses’ speech with his mariner’s souls who are always welcoming him. So the people are the silent listeners who are one of Ulysses’ possessions, like Telemachus (in line 45 the stress is put on the adjective possessive “my”). And is in this part that comes out the Victorian conflict between heart and mind. Living is like opening the wings against a sea made of troubles. A see which is gloom and dark, so creates fear. The image of the sea for the men represents the problems facing, while for the women is an eternal return and the female’s firmness: like in Donne’s poem in which is the women the compass’ part which stay motionless. But the point is Ulysses’ suggestion to work in order to make your soul more noble.  Indeed, when he and his peers were travelling, they had both heart and mind free under the sunlight. And even if they’re old, they could still do a little work before the end, so before the death. They were so great during their adventures that they faced the Gods, so people who humans are unable to reach. But it didn’t matter because they wanted to dare. Therefore, for them there’s still the possibility for a new and better world. And from line 56 starts Ulysses’ exhortation to try: they will travel until the twilight and follow the western stars. He doesn’t lie because it could be possible that they will die washed down by the gulfs. But in that case, they’ll reach the Happy Islands, so the lands were they’ll meet their acquaintances again. They’re old in their physics, but this is worthless because they’re most important part, that is the spirit, is still strong and alive.

After the analysis comes out that Tennyson opted for the dramatic monologue’s genre in order to express his opinions. Indeed, he resumed Ulysses’ figure to deal with his contemporanies, that is the Victorians, and put in his mouth what he thinks about. Then, the Victorians are embodied in Telemachus and Ithaca’s people’s lifestyle. At the end it comes out that there are two kinds of living: there are the people like Ulysses who follows their ideals, and the other like the Victorians who are subjected to the utilitarism, Puritanism and Darwinism.