Tennyson's Ulysses
Analysis of the first 32 verses

Ulysses is a dramatic monologue written by Lord Alfred Tennyson in 1842. He was an aristocratic belonging to the Victorian Age.

A dramatic monologue is a form of poetry which developed in the Victorian Age. The features of a dramatic monologue are:
- it is written in a first person
- the voice speaking belongs to a character and it does not coincide with the writer's voice

The poet choose a voice different from his own one because he makes the reader freer. Indeed, he can make his own opinion on what he reads and in that way the reader can understand more about the character and his potentialities.

The Victorian Age poetry offers two models of literature that are the lyrical poetry, which focus only on one character speaking about himself and his own problems and the dramatic monologue, which enable to express something belonging to the inner side of the human nature.

The dramatic monologue became the mean used by poets to express the interiority and the individual's feelings, using the every-day language. Furthermore, the reader can take distances from what he reads and, being more objective, he can understand more about the character and his potentialities.

The language used is colloquial. The elements that make clear that the language used is colloquial are deities and fillers.

Then, the dramatic monologue finds is archetype in the monologue or in the soliloquy performed in the theatres. The audience is composed by the reader and by a silent person hearing.

Tennyson's Ulysses is different from our expectations. He is old and he cannot stand the life lived in Ithaca. He cannot rest, he wants to leave again. He did not like the idea to spend his last time in an island where people are considered "savage" to divide his goods with his wife (who is no longer attractive) and with people only interested in profits. Even if he was at home, he did not feel at home!

Ulysses could not rest from travel, an activity that he had always enjoyed greatly. He faced lots of problems and he lived lots of adventures that made him famous and well-known. To express that Ulysses said " I am become a name". The choice is not grammatically correct, but using it Tennyson wanted to underline the existential dimension, the essence of his own character.

Even in the selection of verbs, Tennyson made references to the going and coming, which implies a reflection and privileged the existential side of life.

The expression " hungry heart" related to Ulysses shows how passionate he is. Furthermore he is also a great comprehension of body and mind.

Tennyson remains consistent with the idea of Ulysses as someone who is looking for knowledge.
The character also demonstrates to be aware that there are two different dimensions in each individual: the dimension of relationship and the dimension of the relation with themselves.
He remembered all his adventures, activities and experiences he had done. He remembered also his travels in un " untravell'd world". After all his experiences, he cannot rest, pause or make an end.
Moreover, he is aware of the fact that he is old, but this does not stop him from his intention to leave the island again.

The expression " every hour is said from the eternal silence, something more" perfectly renders his will : he didn't want to waste time, he wants to travel, to know, to learn even if he is old, because nevertheless his age he continues to like to express his way of being.