Reading a poem, understanding it, is quite difficult for readers. Poetry has its own language, presently some philosophers or writers say that language isn’t sure, has thousand shades, it must be interpreted.

What does it happen when a person read a poem? First of all, there is the denotative aspect: the reader tries to understand what the text really says, with no care to the inner meaning or to the figures of speech. In the topic we find what we know, what is familiar to us and we try to give a sense to it. Familiar argument spreads a sense of tranquillity: the reader knows, so he hasn’t to discover something. That’s not true. There is always, under the lines, something hidden, something he doesn’t know or he doesn’t find. 

That’s the reason why poetry requires “open and inquisitive minds”. The intelligent reader doesn’t have to give up. On the contrary, he has to rack his brain on the text. There is no “a simple or definitive answer”: as the quotation says, language is ambiguous so there isn’t only one point of view. Reality is relative, full of different and contrasting sides. “Poetry require us to think, puzzle over language”. Language is the starting point of everything. We express ourselves in language, we communicate, we convey emotions, way of being. Literature transfigure this aspect of language. To work, it needs thoughts, reflections: “clear eyes. Open minds.  Sensitive hearts. If we are reading, then we’re thinking, because reading requires thinking”.

Speaking about one single text, Tennyson’s Ulysses represents the way of being of a man who could be considered a “reader”, one who wants, needs to know what occurs around him. He travels through seas, as the readers moves among words. He is similar to his sailors but very different from his subjects. In the poem, they are described as animals, who don’t care of nothing, except of money, richness or power. They live a routine life, sure, without risks. Ulysses, instead, is ready to leave the throne to his son, more similar to the people of Ithaca. He truly doesn’t belong to his island, he is too different, he want to find a new world or life, trying to discover what the ignore. They want to go “beyond the sunset” toward what could be defined as unknown, unknowable. That ‘s Ulysses’ role. We know his figure because everyone know Omer’s Odyssey. Tennyson’s Ulysses, however, is more similar to Dante’s one. The only thing that Omer’s character want is to come back to his family in Ithaca. He got lost and he travels as it’s consequence. Dante puts him in Hell: he wanted to cross Hercules columns, the limit of the world that could be know. He stimulates his companions to follow virtues and knowledge even if the price is very high, but they don’t care. Tennyson’s Ulysses is similar to him. He understands that the island (metaphor of the cities of the 20th century) is too different from him. He must leave and so he does.