Critial Appreciation of “Ulysses”.

“I had to become experienced in the world and in human vice and worth.”—
Ulisse in Dante’s Inferno XXVI.
Tennyson’s Ulysses, one of his seven poems based on Greek mythology, is one of
the most celebrated poems both for the presentation of the resolute and heroic character
of the protagonist, as also for the poetic technique used here.
Ulysses (Odysseus) is one of the most explored mythological figures in literature,
the first exponent being Homer in his Iliad and Odyssey. Tennyson’s poem is a dramatic
monologue. Ulysses has returned to his kingdom, Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War.
He feels highly discontented for his present idle life where his duty is to “mete and dole /
Unequal laws unto a savage race”.
The most striking feature in Tennyson’s Ulysses is his determination not to accept
an idle and monotonous domestic life, but to seek out new horizons, as he “cannot rest
from travel”. To him, the essence of life lies in new discoveries and he wishes “to follow
knowledge like a sinking star” and forever grow in wisdom and in learning.
There lies a sharp difference between Ulysses and his son Telemachus, whose
prudence, dedication, and devotion to the gods are fit for domestic life. Ulysses then calls
upon the mariners with whom he has worked, travelled, and weathered life’s storms over
many years. Although he and they are old, they still have the potential to do something
noble and honorable before death because “’tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
Ulysses and his mariners lack their youthful vitality and strength, yet they are sustained
by their resolve to push onward relentlessly: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
“Ulysses” has clear autobiographical overtones for Tennyson composed it within a
few weeks from the death of his dear friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833 and like In
Memoriam is also an elegy for a deeply cherished friend. Ulysses symbolizes the grieving
poet. As Tennyson himself stated, the poem expresses his own “need of going forward
and braving the struggle of life” after the loss of his beloved Hallam. The poem has
voiced the Victorian spirit of adventure. Ulysses became a model of individual self-
assertion and the Romantic rebellion against bourgeois conformity for the Victorians.
 As in all dramatic monologues, here the character of the speaker emerges almost
unintentionally from his own words. However, Ulysses remains one of the most
celebrated of Tennyson’s poems and an advocacy for adventurous life.

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