Analysis

   Just reading the title, I expect the poem to be about the figure of Ulysses and his striking and special characteristics.
Indeed the protagonist of the poem is the old Ulysses: he talks about his situation once he came back to his island, Ithaca, and he met again his wife, his son and his citizens.
   His speech begins with a comment of his actual life, that disappoints him, for he has to live with his old and dull wife Penelope and with the inhabitants of Ithaca, that are ignorant and rude people. His mind keeps reminding his past adventures on the sea, when with his crew he discovered many peoples and territories and he came in contact with many different and new parts of the world. He is consuming himself for thinking about it.
   For he consider to be a duty to go back to his travels, he is planning to leave the throne of Ithaca to his beloved son Telemachus, who has the right temper to reign over this "savage race" and who is good in organization and bureaucracy.
   The text has the structure of the dramatic monologue: it has six stanzas and each of them contains twelve lines. Ulysses is telling his personal story, his feelings and his thoughts to an hypothetic audience. The mood of the speaking voice is melancholy and it is full of sadness and fear. Tennyson had respected the original characteristics that personalize the figure of Ulysses, therefore the poet is not speaking through his character.
   There is no rhyme scheme in the text and the rhythm is not fixed. There are many alliterations, like "life to the lees" and "drunk delight", that reinforce the concept of a life well-lived to the end. The consonants have an important role in the text: in the third line of the second stanza the sounds "c" and "s" contribute to give a pressing rhythm to the list of adventures Ulysses is making. The sound "r" in the last line of the first stanza gives optimally the idea of a "roaming hungry heart" that starves for knowledge.
   The language used by the poet is a common one, it is not studied, except in rare cases like the fifth line of the second stanza, where Ulysses is describing the battle of Troy in a way that reminds the ancient epic poems. Nevertheless the position of some words has a specific function: when Ulysses is describes his way of reign he uses the words "mete and dole", for they are heavy and banal actions he is obliged to do. For the same issue, in the eleventh line of the first stanza when he complains about his citizens that don't know him he says "I am become a name" instead of "I have become a name"; and he does intentionally this mistake to underline he gives importance to the existence, not to the posses.
   Finally, he uses word like "good" and "useful" in the fourth stanza in an ironic way, for he things ordinary thing are made for Telemachus and not for him: he values his son, but in his affection he distances himself from him for he is not attracted by the order and the rules but by the unknown and the supernatural.