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,
(33-34) 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.
