Alfred, Lord Tennyson

As mentioned in podcast #10, one issue to consider in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is the degree of selfishness that is present in Ulysses’ desires to have grand adventures once more. As a dramatic monologue, part of “Ulysses” purpose is to create turmoil: the speaker is not necessarily right, and there is a degree of judgment required of the reader. Indeed, there appears to be textual support for both a positive and negative view of the hero.

It is interesting to consider, as mentioned in the podcast, that Ulysses’ last voyage consisted of sinking in the harbor, killing his crew. This crime landed him in hell him in Dante’s Inferno. According to http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/eng251/dante.html, Ulysses was in the eighth circle of hell, reserved for the fraudulent, and the eighth bolge for being an evil counselor. Tennyson would have been familiar with Dante’s Inferno, so this is evidence for an unfavorable interpretation of Ulysses’ decision to travel abroad again. Tennyson depicts him as an “idle king” (line 1, 593). Ulysses is bored in Ithaca, “by this still hearth”. He feels unappreciated, “...I mete and dole/Unequal laws unto a savage race, /That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me” (lines 3-5, 593). He longs for recognition, “I am become a name” he notes (line 11, 593). He misses being “honor’d of them all” (line 11, 593). It appears that Ulysses has a greedy, “hungry heart” (line 12, 593).

Whether or not Tennyson agreed with Dante’s view of Ulysses, it is also significant that “Ulysses” was written soon after Tennyson’s best friend passed away. It seems that death makes us appreciate life by contrast, and perhaps in light of Tennyson’s ongoing struggle with grief he was searching for a meaning and direction in life. Tennyson was trying to view positively the shocking death of his friend. Perhaps that is why at times Ulysses describes his longing to travel rather favorably, “And this gray spirit yearning in desire/To follow knowledge like a sinking star,/Beyond the utmost bound of human thought” (lines 30-32,593). Life and death, then, are a journey, an expanding of mankind’s limitations. Given the chance to encounter such heights, wasting one’s life hardly an option, “How dull it is to pause, to make an end/ To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!/As’ tho to breathe were life…” (line 24, 593). He implies that life is much more than mere existence, that life is being fully present, fully alive. Ulysses notes that his advanced age makes time seem even precious, “Little remains: but every hour is saved/From that eternal silence, something more,/A bringer of new things…” (lines 26-28, 593). Actually, time has not changed value, but aging brings a sense of the limited nature of time and therefore a new awareness of time’s worth. Time is running out, so Ulysses sees the endless possibilities each new day brings. He continues in this favorable vein toward the end of poem, “Come, my friends,/’Tis not too late to seek a newer world” (lines 56-57, 594).

In fact, the poem ends on a very rousing and positive note, “Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’/ We are not now that strength which in old days/ Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;/ One equal temper of heroic hearts,/Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” (lines 65-70, 594). There is a sense of acceptance, with the line “that which we are, we are” (line 67, 594). Perhaps that line was Tennyson’s attempting to give himself some closure. Often those in grief find solace in accepting that however awful their loved one’s passing was, it was somehow “meant to be.” The message at the end of the poem seems to be that age cannot take one’s spirit, that age does not matter; life is worth living no matter how old one is.

So was Ulysses selfishly motivated? The answer depends upon which part of the poem with which the reader agrees. The ending of the poem meets with the expected view of Ulysses as an epic hero, while the Ulysses of the beginning seems a tarnished version. Due to confirmation bias, the reader will look for a point of view that agrees with his or her preconceived notions, which will probably be the optimistic, rousing Ulysses of the end.