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More than any other Victorian-era writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Prime Minister William Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons,...
"Ulysses" was written in 1833 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the future Poet Laureate of Great Britain. The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue spoken by Ulysses, a character who also appears in Homer's Greek epic The Odyssey and Dante's Italian epic the Inferno (Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus).
‘Ulysses’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson presents the indomitable courage and adventurous zeal of old Ulysses. This poem attempts to imagine life from the perspective of the title character, Ulysses. After ten years away from home, the Greek is now faced with the prospect of one final voyage.
" Ulysses " is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is a popular example of the dramatic monologue.
Ulysses. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 1809 –. 1892. It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole. Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
The final lines of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem 'Ulysses' feature in the James Bond film, Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig. M, played by Judi Dench, recites the final lines of the poem, which we include here in full for you to read and enjoy.
Ulysses, blank-verse poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written in 1833 and published in the two-volume collection Poems (1842). In a stirring dramatic monologue, the aged title character outlines his plans to abandon his dreary kingdom of Ithaca to reclaim lost glory in a final adventure on the seas.
Summary & Analysis. When Tennyson wrote “Ulysses” in 1833, he was grieving the recent loss of his dear friend Arthur Hallam. Yet despite having written the poem in the depths of despair, Tennyson didn’t conceive of “Ulysses” as an elegy. Instead, the poem offers a rousing message meant to inspire its listener to carry on.
For Tennyson’s Ulysses, to become idle is to become dull like unused metal. However, to persevere against idleness offers hope; by sailing into “the western stars,” Ulysses may find paradise instead of the “eternal silence” of the underworld.
In this poem, written in 1833 and revised for publication in 1842, Tennyson reworks the figure of Ulysses by drawing on the ancient hero of Homer’s Odyssey (“Ulysses” is the Roman form of the Greek “Odysseus”) and the medieval hero of Dante’s Inferno.
