Ulysses

Essay on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Poem “Ulysses” Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Poem “Ulysses” is a poem written as a first person narrative from the perspective of an aged Ulysses. In this poem, Tennyson conveys a message that would have been very timely when it was published in 1842. The personal message that the narrator (heretofore referred to as Ulysses) is specifically expressing is that though he is old and has had many adventures, he still dreams of greater knowledge and a further journey, and will choose to seek that greater adventure, even if it can only be found in death. In his life Ulysses has experienced all sorts of lands and strange customs, “much have I seen and known,” (13) and been honored by people far and wide, “myself not least, but honored of them all,” (15) but he remains unfulfilled, “Yet all experience is an arch where thro’ / gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades / for ever and ever when I make a move.” (19-21) Ulysses trusts his son with the ruling of his country, (3334) and turns his eyes upon the sea once more. This adventure, however, will be different. Ulysses tells his men “Tis not to late to seek a newer world” (57) and “for my purpose holds/ To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths /of all the western starts, until I die.” (60-61) Tennyson writes “by this still hearth… / Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole / unequal laws unto a savage race;” In other words, Ulysses sees himself old and sedentary, ruling a dishonorable people with unjust laws. In the face of this sad end to his life, Ulysses makes a conscious decision that this is not how he would like to end his life. Instead, Ulysses thinks upon how all the experience he has had only makes him want to explore the world to learn what he does not know: “Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ / gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades / for ever and ever when I

make a move.” (19-21) This beautiful image of Tennyson’s, perhaps the most haunting phrase in the entire poem, is worth repeating and analyzing. These lines demonstrate how Ulysses’ ever-present desire for more knowledge is like a journey in which a thousand step bring you no closer to the landmark on the horizon; a journey which contains no hope of fulfill the desire to reach the end. Aware of his constant need for understanding, Ulysses then chooses to leave his comfortable life of old age and to die chasing knowledge and understanding. Even though he knows he is not as physically strong as he once was, “tho’ / we are not now that strength which in old days / moved earth and heaven,” (65-67) he knows his heart is still of the same strong will, “made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.” (69) Ulysses convinces himself and his me that they are the men who will not ever give up, even in seeking the ultimate foreign land: heaven. On a general and universal level, Tennyson used the character of Ulysses as a symbol of people in the Victorian age. Since the end of the dark ages, western civilization had been growing at an outstanding rate, as had advances in technology. Medicine, Astronomy, Physics, and all areas of the Humanities had experienced explosive growth, and international exploration and colonization made it seem as if everything to be known was known—or would be soon. As the working class grew, the Victorians began to experience a loss of psychological individuality, a loss of wonder, and a loss of hope. Ulysses, a man whose great adventures educated, but also aged and disillusioned him, is the perfect representation of the Victorian people whom science and education had made suddenly more educated, but also spiritually void and hopeless. Tennyson speaks to the Victorians, himself included, and acknowledges that though they were weaker than in ages past, and were no longer the people of outward courage and valor that their

ancestors were, they could still choose not to “rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use” (23) but instead choose “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” (70) even if that meant meeting their fate, death, head on.