Textuality » 5LSCA Interacting

RBorini - Activity from Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson
by RBorini - (2020-03-29)
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1)who is speaking and to whom: Ulysses is speaking to no-one like a monologue

how old he is: Ulysses is not young but he is middle aged like Penelope

where he is: His Land (Ithaca)

what he is setting out on: Ulysses retraces his life

 

2)

Life on Ithaca (lines 2-5)                                      

It is uncivilised and... Negative adjectives such as idol, aged  convey Ulysses's total dissatisfaction with life on Ithaca

 

 

His past life (lines 6-18)

On his journey Ulysses discovers joy and suffering. travel is the only way to become a real person and live. the human experience is to know other people. To know yourself. Important words are:"I will drink life...", "enjoy'd", "suffer'd", "I am become a name", "Much have I seen and Known; cities of men", "I am part of all that I have met".

 

 

View of present and future (lines 19-32)

Opposition to immobility. Ulysses believes that life is a journey, don't stay still; Ulysses says "How dull it is to pause, to make an end": this is not life. In life you have to spend your talent traveling.

 

Attitude to Telemachus (lines 33-44)

Telemachus is able to control that wild breed and  "through soft degrees  Subdue them to the useful and the good". Unlike Ulysses, Telemachus does not live for himself, but lives for other people.

 

Address to his mariners (lines 45-70)

Ulysses' sailors were faithful companions and lived like Ulysses. They are all old but their death is less important than their war against the gods. Even if they are old, their desire is to live a real life until death: "To sail beyond the sunset, and baths of all the western stars, until I die".

 

3a) Ulysses in poetry is an old man, unhappy with his current situation, whose only desire is to travel and instead owes a wild race, which does not know him.

During his travel he met: joy and suffering the things that make an authentic life.

Considering Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, we can see a contrast between the two characters: Ulysses thinks about himself and his life, while Telemachus makes the decision for the next.

travel is the symbol of life.

Ulysses of Tennyson is exalted by the hero's eternal restless aspiration.

 

3b) The poet prefers Ulysses' choice of life, because Ulysses lives his life by traveling and knowing his neighbor, so he knew himself better.

 

4) In my opinion the poem reflects a sense of loss, the terms appear as vague and indefinite while the difference from father to son is stolen with the loss of some ideals.

 

5) The meter used is similar to that of poetry even if there are no rhymes, the musicality marks the "verses" and the pauses.