Notes of the 20^th of April 2012

During his voyages Ulysses learns to know himself and he enters in relation with different people: this fact make of him a modern character.

He uses very interesting words, that help the reader to understand his psychology and his feelings. For example the verb "to drink" is employed to express his desire of living, giving the idea of his passionate attitude.

The expression “to take arms against a sea of troubles” is in Hamlet, when the protagonist can’t chose life or death. 

The use of myth emphasizes the epic context and Lord Tennyson wants the main character in the epic poetry is credible.

The poet uses the word “arch” (line 19), alluding to the arch of life or of the day (at the beginning there is birth or the dawn; then there’s the growth and the end of it is death, or the night).

The voyage is a metaphor of life as the monologue is Ulysses’ voyages in his inner part.

Ulysses explains that there is much to know still (line 20). This unknown part of the world is defined “margin” that “fades” that reveals the modern idea that the limit is only in man’s mind (is not physic) and can be trespassed throughout the good will. Ulysses is modeled on the Victorian man.  For Ulysses to go beyond is to go beyond the limits, as the his myth says.

Ulysses is getting old but he is still strong, courageous. Even he’s not young he wants to express his idea of life, a typical tension of Romanticism (the "sensucht").

The sentence "[...] not to shine in use" is a sort of admonition about the inopportunity of showing heroism. 

Ulysses has few time remained,  is at the sunset of his life: this notion is taken from a Shakespearian sonnet.

The protagonist supports the idea that every man needs to find his own way. For this reason, he explains, he can’t find his right place and way there in Itaca. Just because the moment of his death is coming soon, he wants something more and he wants to be a bringer of new things. Man needs illusions, as states Foscolo and Ulysses has a romantic nature, as the ideal hero should be.

Lord Tennyson uses the dramatis personae choosing Ulysses because this important figure (who has the authoritativeness given by myth) allows him to criticize the materialism of the Victorian age (based on profit) without compromising himself.

At line 31 there’s a reference to stars, particularly to a comet (it reminds the night of S. Laurence).

From line 33 to line 43 there is a short section, where Lord Tennyson introduces the character of Telemachus. In J. Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus is Leopold Bloom's adopted son, while in Lord Tennyson's poem Telemachus represents another kind of living life.

Employing the expression "my own", the heroic father highlights the idea of possession. Ulysses expresses the double face of human being: the personal identity and the social role. Telemachus can do things that his father can’t do (for example he’s a diplomatic person, unlike Ulysses).  

The word "useful" and "good", that are the key words of the Victorian age. In the ‘900 literature had to entertain but also had to teach.  

In the poem Ithaca is the synecdoche of the Victorian world, while the dramatis personae (Ulysses) is Lord Tennyson's mask.

During the Victorian age there are three tendencies:

- Darwinism, the theory about evolution by C. Darwin;

- Utilitarism, which stated that if everyone produces the useful, everyone would stay better;

- Puritanism, where it is thought that if a person does not improve his condition he has not God's blessing;