ANALYSIS OF ULYSSES

The aim of the present text is to provide a personal analysis about Ulysses, a text written in the 1833 by Tennyson. 

Considering the title, an intelligent reader may think that “Ulysses” is the name of the important character of the greek’s mythology and at the end of the text, he will find out that Tennyson was referring properly to that character but he added some differences from the traditional Ulysses that everybody knows.

First of all the reader, at a first sight, may notice that the text is organised into two different columns. This could indicate the presence of two different subjects who maybe speak about the same thing, seen from two different points of view. Indeed, if you go on with the reading, you may notice that the first subject is Ulysses who is talking about his life; on the other hand, in the adjacent column, there is  Ulysses but now he is speaking about his son Telemachus. 

Taking into consideration the first column, it can be divided into three different parts: the first one (from line 1 to line 5) has an introductory function since Ulysses is speaking about his family and how he does not feel well in his on town, Itaca. The reader can understand it right from the language adopted from the writer like when he said that the inhabitants of Itaca are a flock of savages (savage race) described as a population that “hoard”, “sleep”, “feed” and “know not me” referring to Ulysses. Further on he considered the laws which marked Itaca, as unequal. The use of these verbs and adjectives (like barren referred to the crags of the island) are negative since a population has to be considered well organised, productive and well military organised and the laws, considered at the base of the society, equal and respectful for every single person. These can be considered as the main reasons that can explain why Ulysses wanted to left Itaca and to go on with his travels; and it is emphasised from the use od the verbs “mete” and “dole”. Another relevant aspect is the adjectives that Ulysses used in order to describe his family, because he described the King, who might be the most important figure in a population, as “idle” and his wife as “aged”. 

Considering the second part (from line 6 to line 12), it has an explicative function that explain  how Ulysses has became as the person he was.  It starts directly with the sentence “I cannot rest from travel” which highlight his nature of traveller and discoverer of other cultures and lives. It is important because it explains what Ulysses would have abandoned once he left Itaca, but the reader understands that he has to.

Especially in the expression “I will drink life to the lees” is enclosed the spirit of Ulysses who would not have wanted to waste even another moment of his life in a place that he did not consider his home anymore.  

Than he starts remembering those times in Itaca, using adjectives as greatly linked with the verbs: enjoyed and suffered. Thanks to it the reader understands that life is made of great moments, and sed ones, but you can chose to spend them with those you love or alone. This is what has done Ulysses, while he was on a shore, reflection about the sense of life. Now he is moving from the relations between him and other humans, to the landscape. An important imagine that the writer adds in order to frame this moment, is the presence of the “ Hayades Vexed”, which are stars. He said it was a rain of stars. This astronomical reference helped the reader to represent the image of Ulysses while he was trying to say goodbye to his homeland.  Moving on, the sentence “now I am become a name” sets the changing from a romantic novel, since in the past lines he was focusing his attention on feelings, to a dramatic monologue. This statement is very important because what he has passed during his life brought him to become the person he was now. At this point the intelligent reader may ask himself “How has he become a name?” “What does this mean?”.  He reached it thanks to what he had done during his life and he finally became somebody everybody knows and this was really respectful since he became the person he was “for always roaming with a hungry heart”. His life coincided to all his experiences, to what he has seen and known. But the most important element is that he, not at least, has known himself, he finally has understood what kind of person he was and now he was ready to leave, with the awareness of hits “roots”. Indeed to highlight this concept, “Myself not least” is put in a key position. 

Further more considering the third part (from line 13 to line 27),  it is important because it highlight the true nature of Ulysses: someone who has built himself through what he passed and experienced. He considered his traveling experiences as possibilities in order to better know the “untravelled world” which makes itself known more and more by travelling. Therefore “travel” becomes a tool, through which you can discover and learn what you do not know yet. The writer underlines this concept saying that when you travel, the edges of the world disappear. Important is the verb used “ to fade” which is symbolic because allows the reader’s mind to imagine those edges which clearly disappear, and reveal beyonds lands which were still unknown for him. Since Ulysses’ nature is that of a traveller, he considers “dull” to stop travelling because doing this, you interrupts  knowledge.  Instead he thinks that only one life is not enough for those who travel and the reader can understand it when he said that “life piled on life were all too little, and  of one to me little remains”. He considers travelling a way to escape from the “eternal silence”, which is a synonym for “death”. Last but not least he reclaims the concept of the falling stars as in the third part as “sinking stars”, from the second part with “Hyades Vexed”. From this part of the text, Tennyson reveals a different Ulysses from the one the reader was accustomed to. Here the writer leverage on feelings and specifically on the personal life of the character. Here the narrator is an omniscient first person narrator who talks directly about his life. There is not any presence of direct speech, but a lot of metaphors and similes that make the reader visualise what Ulysses is saying. Therefore the writer used principally the narrative technique of showing. 

Moving on the second column of the text, the writer decided to change point of view and to focus on Ulysses’ son: Telemachus. Considering the second column, it can be divided into three different parts.

Starting with the first one (from line 28 to line 38), apparently it has the function to present who Ulysses is going to talk about. From the first words the reader understand that he is Telemachus, to whom Ulysses would like to leave the Island one day. 

From the third line, the writer starts describing the figure of Telemachus as an hard-working person, persuasive and really determined. The fact that Telemachus was “well-loved” from is dad is relevant, considering the fact that they had really different  personalities. This is important to understand which kind of person Telemachus was, because his dad (Ulysses) was very reactive person and he didn’t have a good consideration even for his parents. Telemachus is not only loved by Ulysses, he is loved even from Ulysses’ household god and all of the people that had been able to subdue thanks to his misleading behaviour. Specifically he used the term “adoration” which generally is used to speak about divinities. 

Moving to the second part (from line 39 to line 59), it has a descriptive function since it starts with the figure of the port of Itaca. It represents a symbol because in the port there are the vessels which can be linked to the travel. This part of the set is full of obscures adjectives that let the scene move from the scene of Telemachus praised from everyone, to the one of Ulysses’ mariners. Obviously the second part is incinerated to the topic of the voyage through the figure of the mariners considered as “souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought me”. The meaningful part of the second section is that Ulysses considered himself old, this implies that he has little time to go on discovering the rest of the world. The concept that  is highlighted is that  “death close all” and since he was still alive, he had some more time, “’tis not too late to seek a newer world”. Even at the end of the second section there is the repetition of the figure of the starts and of the concept of death, analysed in the previous column. 

Finally, the third section (from line 40 to line 45) has a conclusive function since Ulysses released that they did not have the same strength as they had in the past, but they would have done everything in order to go on with their past life, rich of travels and new discoveries. 

Summing up, after the analysis of the text, the intelligent reader understands that the real subject of the text is not Ulysses or his son Telemachus, but is the “travel” and how it is important to enrich his knowledge of the world. For Ulysses, travel has been a determining factor in his life and he would like to continue discovering hidden places until death prevents him.