Ulysses

by Alfred Tennyson
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 Greek name Latin name He is the:
king of Ithaca,
Odysseus or Ulysses
husband of Penelope,
is the hero of Homer's
father of Telemachus,
epic poem, “The Odyssey.”

He took 10 years to Ulysses is a great adventurer

get home from known for his cunning
the Trojan War! and resourcefulness.
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 In Tennyson’s poem about
Ulysses the hero is on the island of Ithaca
In retirement Ulysses
contemplates one final voyage…

It’s written in the first person

It’s a dramatic monologue

Ulysses is speaking

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 In the first section Ulysses reflects on his
life
Talking about himself Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags
Suggests
empty
lack of
action Give out The islanders
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
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hey don’t recognise his achievements
 In the second section Ulysses looks
back
all times I have enjoyed
reatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone;
Repeated for emphasis - Ulysses
is a man of extremes both on shore
Stars that bring rain
At sea and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea:
troubled
The epic language
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emphasises the scale of what he has done
 Ulysses thinks about the exciting
times from his life
am become a name; Much have I
For always roaming seen and known;
cities of men
and manners,
It is these times
climates, councils
that he remembers
governments

Where he was honoured

runk delight of battle with my peers; He enjoyed war

ar on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
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 Ulysses' past experience makes him want
Sounds enticing more adventure
experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world

Travel and action are

better than standing still
Contrasts with “gleams”
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
Comparing himself unpolished
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 Ulysses knows that he has not much time
left
He wants..
Links the idea of
travel and knowledge

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

The journey which no

one has yet travelled
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 In the next section he says he will
leave his kingdom to his son
Telemachus
Telemachus has the job of
civilizing the people of Ithaca Well-loved of me

to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Ulysses want
no part of this He works his work, I mine.

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 Ulysses gets set for his last voyage
There gloom the dark broad seas. He speaks to
How does this line make his mariners
the voyage seem dangerous?
you and I are old;

He sees himself and He knows that

his men as heroes death is close
But before it arrive
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods
Some work of noble note, may yet be don
To be accomplished on the voyage
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 He’s ready to leave
To sail beyond
the sunset, Tis not too late to seek a newer world
To the edge
of the known Has an air
world and the baths of finality
Of all the western stars, until I die.

Beyond the He‘s no desire to return

straits of Gibraltar from this voyage

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 Perhaps he
wanted to be
reunited with him? thinks of paradise
Ulysses

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

The companion of
Ulysses at Troy “about the need of going forward
and braving the struggle of life"

Tennyson was 24 when he wrote th

poem, shortly after the death
of his friend Arthur Hallam
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 In the final section Ulysses realises he is
old but he still wants to live life
Most of his life is over remains
Tho' much is taken, much abides

He’s realistic about

We are not now that strength his limitations
But he won’t be beaten
by what lies ahead
but strong in will
Is Ulysses trying to to strive, to seek,
motivate himself to find, and not to yield
for the journey? Give in
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