ULYSSES_ACTIVITY

1) Read the poem through and say:

The speaker is Ulysses and he is speaking about his past experiences because he is old, and so he can see the consequences of his past actions. He is in Ithaca with his wife Penelope, but he doesn’t like his present situation because he prefers traveling: he had been taking so many voyages that he isn’t able to live stabile on an island (as Ithaca is).

2) Now read the text again, this time paying attention to the development of the argument. Summarize what Ulysses says and feels following the guidelines on the left. For each point consider also Tennyson's vocabulary indicating which words and phrases, in particular, reveal in the hero's traits and attitudes. The first point has been written for you.

3a) How is Ulysses portrayed in the poem?

Ulysses is the representation of the Modern Age characterization of man. He expresses his feelings and emotions even if in the Victorian Age it wasn’t common: it anticipates the Modern Age.

Ulysses is old and he is thinking about how he became what he is now thanks to his past, voyages and experiences. Ulysses thinks about his past life because he is at the end of his life and tries to summarize all his past experiences.

Ulysses’ qualities are in contrast with his son’s ones: Telemachus is a sensible and wise man, whose qualities are right to run a country because he is good at taking care of the people of Ithaca and he is able to governate the isle. The men are in contrast because Telemachus has the typical Victorian qualities and, on the contrary, Ulysses has a premature Modern Age mentality.

Ulysses can be taken as the symbol to live life to the full, trying to integrate our knowledge as much as we can through travelling and interacting with other people.

Ulysses differs from the picture we usually associate with the hero of the Odyssey by expressing his feelings and passions. In the Odyssey Ulysses is characterized as a rational man, on the contrary, in Tennyson’s Ulysses, the character expresses his passions like a Modern Age character.

3b) What is the poet’s attitude to Ulysses and Telemachus? With whom does it side?

The poet’s attitude seems to identify with the character of Ulysses because he describes Telemachus as a stabile man. It expresses Ulysses’ (and so the poet’s) will of travelling and living life to the full without thinking much about the actions we have to do.

4) The poem was composed when Tennyson was still suffering for the death of his dearest friend, A. Hallam, in 1883. Does the poem reflect a sense of loss?

The poem reflects the sense of loss of the poet because it is a dramatic monologue about the end of a man’s life. It is about the memory of Ulysses’ life, when it is almost at its end, the death, that happened to Tennyson’s friend.

5) As you will have realised the hero’s feelings are communicated through a careful choice of words. What observations can you make about the meter and the music of the poem and the relationship with its meaning?

The poem is musically full of alliterations to enforce the concept of the cohesion of the poem itself. Ulysses feelings are expressed with difficult and important words to show the importance of the dramatic monologue.