Ulysses
This poem is written as a monologue. Ulysses is the speaker. The lines are in blank verse and many of the lines are enjambed. Because of the blank verse Ulysses' speech stays more natural. The poem is divided into four paragraphs. Ulysses is about progress and living life to its full potential. Ulysses needs to do something, or he will lose his self-respect. The poem takes place at the end of Ulysses' life. As the poem begins, Ulysses reflects the things he did during his life, he compares his past adventures with the life he lives now as the king of Ithaca. He finds his memories far more compelling than the daily life, that he leads now and he longs to return to his journeys. Ulysses has experienced too much, to enjoy a quiet domestic life with Penelope. The use of 'savage race' in the first paragraph is intended to highlight his disdain for the lazy attitude "hoard and sleep and feed" and lack of adventure "and know not me" of the people in his kingdom. He reflects on his journeys, on his sailor comrades, on the fame he has achieved, and on his desire to escape the responsibilities of his kingdom. He has been made weak and old through the course of time, but still he strives and seeks to
It adds a certain key of uncertainty to the poem. " Maybe he even looks forward to his death, because it will be a new experience. Ulysses addresses the mariners with whom he has worked and traveled. He says, "This is my son, mine own Telemachus, to whom I leave the scepter and the isle. " He declares that his goal is to sail onward "beyond the sunset" until his death. The "arch" is the place where he is at the moment. He can mete out unequal laws to his people, but he is a fighter, not a law giver. Ulysses travels have exposed him to many different types of people and ways of living. He proclaims that he "cannot rest from travel" but feels compelled to live his life to the fullest and enjoy every single day of it. It is as if Tennyson is trying to say that, even the dreams we have and the things in life we know we must do, have an element of uncertainty about them. He encourages them to make use of their old age because "'tis not too late to seek a newer world. Ulysses sees that the world he left is not the world he has returned to after a long absence; not only have the people and their needs changed, but Ulysses sees that what they need is something quite different from what he need. No one ever thought that life would be the same after Troy, but Ulysses spent so long trying to get back to the way things were, and all he had to go by was the idealized vision of Ithaca in his heart of what life would be at home. Ulysses declares that it is boring to stay in one place, and that to remain stationary is to rust rather than to shine; to stay in one place is to pretend that all there is to life is the simple act of breathing, whereas he knows that in fact life contains much novelty, and he longs to encounter this.
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