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MRosso - Victorian Poetry and The Drammatic Monologue: Ulysses of Tennyson's analysis
by - (2012-04-23)
Up to 5A. Victorian Poetry and The Dramatic Monologue
Alfred Lord Tennyson was one of the most famous poet of Victorian period; in particular he wrote his personal version of Ulysses in 1833, but this version deals with the last part of Ulysses’ life when he returned to Ithaca, so it is more older than Homer’s and Dante’s version.
Right from the start, the reader can understand that Ulysses comes back to his island Ithaca, but he does not feel at ease as shown by expressions such as “still hearth […] barren crags […] match’d with an aged wife” that suggest he does not recognize what he is looking. Nevertheless, Ulysses is annoyed not only from his wife and the island, but he is annoyed also by people who are described as “savage race” because they behave as animals and they do the minimum to survive (“hoard, and sleep, and feed”). The expression “and know not me” that ends the first scene concludes this theme giving another repetition of the concept: he feels alone and misplaced.