JOURNEY AND NOT DESTINATION IS THE ULTIMATE METAPHOR AND SYMBOL IN

TENNYSON'S POETRY. DISCUSS

“TO STRIVE, TO SEEK, TO FIND, AND NOT TO YIELD”

Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ as claimed by many critics is an elegy of his friend Arthur Hallam

written soon after his death, but many believe it to be mode of promoting colonisation and

Victorian Imperialism. The ancient figure of ‘Ulysses’ resurrected by Tennyson though

inspired from Homer’s Odysseus and Dante’s Ulysses, but it differs from both and can be

considered as their hybrid which embodies the urge to seek experience, travel and expand.

Tennyson uses the name of Ulysses and his legends of his great sea voyages as trope to fulfil

his Victorian Imperial propaganda of colonisation and has incorporated the theme of journey

with the ideology of expansion, imperialism and utilitarian ideas through this dramatic

monologue.

From the beginning of the poem Tennyson tries to establish journey as a symbol of mental

development, self-discovery and greater knowledge in which the Ulysses’ figure act as a

catalyst. He tries to tempt the readers to go on journeys to discover new lands to conquer

maybe because, during the Victorian period, only the first-born legitimate sons were entitled

to property. This left the other sons (illegitimate and not first born) discontented. Since they

had no claim to property a feeling of unrest developed among these people and they needed

something to do. Some believe that Tennyson was commissioned by Queen Victoria to be a

virtual mouth piece for imperialism. When looked at from that perspective, the poem Ulysses

seems to act as a ‘Siren’ (a creature in Greek mythology) for the sons with no claim to their
father’s fortunes, to embark on a voyage of conquest by enchanting them through his

speeches. John G. Peters in his essay, ‘ULYSSES AS SIREN IN TENNYSON'S POEM’ suggests

that, ‘both. Ulysses' speech is indeed a positive, motivational exhortation, and yet it is also a

seductive and dangerous deception. As a result, Ulysses fulfils a dual role, that of leader and

that of deceiver.’

The poem is a complete manifestation of Victorian imperialism and colonization, as he refers

his own subject as ‘savage race’ suggesting them being inferior and needs to be civilized

which is clearly an attitude typical to Victorian imperialism. Also, when Ulysses asks his son

to “Subdue them to the useful and the good”, he is implying the Utilitarian idea of subduing

and refining to yield something useful from his subject. The typical notion of imperial

conquest by the process of civilizing is achieved through the journey, suggestive from this

line: “I am part of all that I have met.” The theme of journey suggests a process of mental

development and hence becoming civilized but simultaneously, the image of journey carries

the implications of imperialism, the strident colonizer that looks for newer and newer land to

occupy.

Journey is used as metaphor by Ulysses and becomes the ultimate means of combating death

as the final dissolution of the self. “Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades for

ever and for ever when I move”, here death is symbol of final unconquered land that defines

the limits of self-assertion. For him, simply to live should not be the end of the life instead,

every moment that is lived must bring something new and adventurous. “ And this gray spirit

yearning in desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star”, this reference to Byron’s Childe

Harold III here, which suggests reaching out for something unreachable becomes the only
way to combat the limits of the self. The figure of Ulysses embodies an eternal traveller,

forever seeking new experience, but whose final journey marks the dissolution of self.

Therefore, Ulysses himself wants to as well as suggests his fellow mariners to travel until

they meet the final unconquered land i.e. death.

Since, Ulysses is on his journey of self-discovery and wants to keep travelling until he

reaches his final destination, many critics have claimed that he is being irresponsible by

turning away from his duties. But he’s conscious of him being a king and therefore, has left

his son to rule and perfectly coordinated he is with his son, which is evident from this line:

“When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.” Far from forgetting his duties he distributes

them in the most rational manner, leaving the difficult task of administration to his son, while

he himself takes up the job of conquering. In a sense this how Victorian imperialism worked.

The ideology of expansion, of seeking new worlds accompanied by the idea of

administration.

“’Tis is not too late to seek a newer world.”

Through this line either Ulysses is motivating his fellow mariners to go journey to explore

new lands until they reach the last unconquered land (death) or the Tennyson himself is

speaking about poet’s quest to explore the region of the imagination and if it’s Tennyson,

then the poet too is the part of this imperial conquest of the imagination. Therefore, Tennyson

is the ‘Siren’ enchanting readers in Victorian era through Ulysses, as claimed by John G.

Peters, “Ultimately, Tennyson's "Ulysses" is a paradigm of paradox, the clarion calling for

renewed life and the Siren calling for death ? with a voice as melodious, as enchanting, and

as deadly as Homer's Sirens. The explicit meaning of Ulysses' speech undermines itself. And
as a result, a new meaning appears along side it.” Though it was the part of the Victorian

white man’s burden to civilize the world through the use of education, criticism and poetry,

and the poets played a major role in this revolution by finely using Althusser’s ‘Ideological

State Apparatus’ in their work. Here, Tennyson used it under the theme of Journey and the

figure of Ulysses to spread his Victorian imperial ideologies.

ROUSHAN KUMAR SINGH

17/72846 (SEMESTER IV)
BRITISH LITERATURE: 19TH CENTURY
SUBMITTED TO: AZHAR KHAN