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Yueng Oi Fung

Semester 4

English honours

UID: 0304200251

Roll No: 203879

Course: CC10

Ulysses concerns about Tennyson’s personal journey.

Alfred Tennyson (6 August 1809- 6 October 1892) was one of the most popular British poets

and the poet laureate during Queen Victoria’s reign. He was awarded the chancellor’s gold

medal at Cambridge for “Timbuktu” one of his first pieces in 1829. Tennyson’s first solo

collection of poems, Poems chiefly Lyrical, was published in which ‘Claribel’ and “Mariana”

were also included which is his most prominent poem. Some critics described his work as

overly sentimental but his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention

of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson‘s use of

powerful visual imagery and medievalism was a crucial influence on the pre- raphaelite

brotherhood.

Tennyson wrote some prominent blank verses including Idylls of the king, “ Ulysses”,

and “Tithonus”. Ulysses was written in 1833 and was published in 1842 in his second well-

received volume of poetry. The poem is an example of dramatic monologue ( a type of poetry

written in the form of a speech of an individual character ). The classical mythical hero

Ulysses describes his restlessness and discontent while returning to his kingdom, Ithaca after

his far-ranging travelling. Despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and his son

Telemachus, Ulysses yearns to explore again, being driven by “ the longing I had to gain

experience of the world”. Tennyson reworks the figure of Ulysses by bringing out the ancient

hero of Homer’s Odyssey, “Ulysses” in the Roman form. of Greek “ Odysseus”. Ulysses has
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been scrutinized widely in literature, and the adventures of Odysseus were first listed in

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey(c.800-700BC) and he draws the narrative of Homer in this poem.

However, it was found by the critics that Tennyson’s Ulysses recollects Ulisse of Dante in his

Inferno (c.1320). In the account of Dante, Ulisse is convicted to hell among the false

counsellors, both for his pursuits of knowledge beyond human bounds and for creating the

deception of the Trojan horse.

However, the poem also concerns the poet’s journey, as it was composed in the first

few weeks after the death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833, with whom he

had a strong bond. “ In Memoriam A.H.H” was written to commemorate his friend Arthur

Hallam, a fellow poet and student at Trinity College, Cambridge after he died of a stroke at

the age of 22. The two friends had spent much of the time discussing poetry and philosophy,

writing verse, and travelling in southern, France, the Pyrenees, and Germany. Hallam was

considered for greatness, conceivably as a statesman by Tennyson. Ulysses symbolises the

poet’s grieving, despite the awareness that “ death closes all” he declares his resolution to

push onward. As Tennyson noted that the poem expresses his own “ need of going forward

and braving the struggle of life “ after the loss of his beloved friend.

Tennyson was living in Somersby, Lincolnshire in a cramped quarter with his mother

and nine of his ten siblings, when he got to know the death of his friend on 1 October 1833.

He also had to take up household responsibilities when his father died in 1831. It was

concerning about his mental and physical health during this time, his three brothers were

mentally ill and the family had very little income .when his outlook was improving,

adjusting to his domestic duties, regaining contact with friends, he publishes his 1832 book of

poems: the news of Hallam’s death arrived. Tennyson shared his grief with his sister Emily

who knew Hallam.

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According to Linda Hughes, a Victorian scholar, views “Ulysses” particularly its

treatment of domesticity, the emotional gulf between the state of his household affairs and the

loss of his close friends. Ulysses’ discontent seems to mirror Tennyson’s frustration with

managing the house in such a state of grief. on the other hand, Ulysses is determined to

transcend his age and his environment by travelling again. He said that the poem “gave my

feeling about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life”, it may be that the

poem is determined to defy circumstances that attracted Tennyson to the myth. He also stated

that “there is more about myself in Ulysses, which was written under the sense of loss and

that all had gone by but that still life must be fought out to the end”.The stylistic incongruity

between the poem and the author had made the poem “Ulysses” exceptional. W.W.Robson,

according to him Tennyson is the responsible social being, the admirably serious, and

‘committed’ individual, is uttering strong sentiments in the accent of Tennyson the most

strenuous, lonely and poignant of poets. He finds his two.personae , the ‘ responsible social

being’ and the melancholy poets that meets uniquely in ‘Ulysses’, and yet it seem

unrecognisable to each other within the text.

Tennyson was great craftsmanship whose poetry is polished and revised his manuscripts

greatly, his efforts are to the point at self-editing which was described by Robert Browning as

‘ insane’, symptomatic of ‘mental infirmity’.he uses a wide range of subjects varying from

medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to the observation of

nature. His tendency toward moralising and his maturity in his feelings reflects the Victorian

period.
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Works Cited

Banerjee, Biplab, Ed. 19th Century British Poetry. Kolkata 700007: Indian books

view, 2020. Print.

Wikipedia contributors. “Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,

The Free Encyclopedia, 16 May . 2022 . Web. 18 May.2022.

Wikipedia contributors. "Ulysses (poem)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 Feb. 2022. Web. 18 May. 2022.

Thomas, Huw. "Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson". Poem Analysis,

https://poemanalysis.com/alfred-tennyson/ulysses/.13 May 2022.