Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" is part of an epic elegy written in honor of Tennyson's beloved friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. The author points out that the poem suggests that even in old age, as one is weakened "by time and fate", one still should remain "strong in will/To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." The paper relates that there is a tension in this poem between the past and present, between the sea and the land, between the glory of power and greatness and between life lived on the grand scale while traveling the world and the present smaller scale of peace and domesticity. The paper includes many embedded quotations.

From the Paper:

"In many ways, the narrator of this poem is an inspiring figure. He is, as he acknowledges, one who "moved earth and heaven." He is also one who teaches us that obstacles, pain, loss, loneliness and death are part of life, but do not diminish life. "All times I have enjoyed/Greatly, have suffered greatly," he recalls, as if to embrace the entire warp and woof of experience. "Always roaming with a hungry heart...I am part of all that I have met," he reflects. Here he expresses a deep wisdom borne of a life fully lived, an understanding that all we experience becomes part of us."

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