Analysis of the quotation from To My Students Reading Tennyson’s Ulysses

The quotation is taken from a teacher’s speech to his students reading Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses. Although the essay focuses on problems which involve literature in general, its main thesis shares many points in common with Ulysses’ speech, as it is presented in Tennyson’s poem.

The teacher asks his students to take an inquisitive and curious approach to poetry and literature. Indeed, poetry and prose are opportunities to discover “truth and wisdom”, but at the price of a continuous activity of thinking and analyzing the text looking for the clues that may lead the reader to a specific interpretation instead of another. Literature appears to be a complex experience, which involves the human being at all the levels, in that it requires “clear eyes, open minds, sensitive hearts”: it is the whole human being, in both his rational, emotional and physical sphere who is absorbed into the process of reading. This causes reading to be a very different action from watching television. As a matter of fact, television does not require a process of reasoning and analyzing on the part of the watcher: its contents are trivial, immediate and straightforward, and, as such, they do not require us to stop and reflect, that means to activate processes in our mind.

The writer warns his students about the difficulty of poetry. Many people prefer to “quit reading or listening” just because they find the language of poetry too obscure or complex; however, this is the only true reason to read poetry: to put ourselves in discussion, to open our minds to other possible interpretations of the outer world, but also to deal with our limitations. Poetry is not intended to make us happy or sad; it is intended to make us reflect. Actually, only things that require a great bunch of work (both on the side of the writer and of the reader) can be really considered Art.

The first analogy between this essay and Tennyson’s Ulysses is the continuous desire to travel and seek for knowledge. Such voyage may be a “material” one (sailing, visiting new lands by boat), but it can also be only imaginary (accomplished through literature). Indeed, if the old age may be an obstacle to carry out actual voyages, the desire to continuously seek for knowledge cannot be extinguished by anyone but death. Ulysses admits that his voyage may lead him to the Happy Isles (the Netherworld), but this does not discourage Ulysses, who takes that as a challenge, and does not fear any obstacle or danger, even if it may bring him to death.

If Ulysses had decided to stay in Ithaca, he would have acted like the reader who gives up reading and turns on the TV, but he has actually continued his wanderings: he is like the reader who does not surrender to the first difficulty, but faces the challenge and goes on no matter of what happens. Ulysses represents the human being who wants to experience, even “beyond the sunset”; and this is why he has become the protagonist of so much works: he is the epitome of the quest for truth and a sense of life.