Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s epic poem "Ulysses" is composed as a dramatic monologue, consisting of four stanzas each of which frankly discuss the speakers current situation and yearning for adventure. The use of iambic pentameter provides a sense of fluidity to the speaker’s voice. The speaker reveals himself to be the protagonist of the poem with the opening line “It little profits that an idle king” (1). The use of the word “idle” offers the first clue as to one of the main themes of the poem. Tennyson much like the protagonist of his poem feels the need to move on, in life. The period in which the poem was wrote, many sociable changes where occurring in Victorian England, the effects of the industrial revolution where being felt far and wide and there was, the idea that society needed to work together in order to establish conformity. Ulysses is feeling emotionally empty throughout the poem, without his mariner friends and adventures similar to times gone by, a similar situation that Tennyson had found himself in.
“Ulysses” was written after the death of his close friend, soul mate and confidante Arthur Henry Hallam. This was one of many poems composed by Tennyson, upon Hallam’s death the most notable being “Memorandum” (1833-1850). Tennyson himself commented how the series of poems were a direct comparison to how he felt after the loss of his dear friend. The poem was published in the book Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1842). Mythological characters appear to play an important role within Tennyson’s poetry, from English folk law characters such as King Arthur that featured in “Morte D’Arthur and other Idyllis” to the Greek mariner and adventurer Ulysses. The character of Ulysses has featured in many great epic poems, ...
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...hesterton. Tennyson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1906. PDF.
Gray, Erik. "Tennyson’s Rapture: Transformation in the Victorian Dramatic Monologue." Victorian Studies 50.3 (2008): 541-42. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Feb. 2015. .
Nohrnberg, James. "Eight Reflections of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”." Victorian Poetry 47.1 (2009): 101-50. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Feb. 2015. .
Robbins, Tony. "Tennyson's "Ulysses": The Significance of the Homeric and Dantesque Backgrounds." Victorian Poetry Autumn 11.3 (1979): 177-93. JSTOR. Web. 21 Feb. 2015. .
Skidmore, Joel. "The Odyssey - Background - Detailed Version." Greek Mythology. 1997. Web. 20 Feb. 2015. .
After centuries of serving as background noise to her husband Ulysses’ odes of sea storms, sirens, and celebrity, the mythological Penelope finally steps into the light in Miriam Waddington’s poem “Ulysses Embroidered.” Functioning as a revisionary text to both the Alfred, Lord Tennyson work “Ulysses” and the tradition of The Odyssey itself, “Ulysses Embroidered” quickly strikes its readers as a fiercely feminist re-envisioning of Penelope and her tale. Waddington’s work allows for an age-old legend to be told in a new way with a bold, feminine speaker, but to what end do her changes remark on Tennyson’s original work? By engaging in two separate modes of revision by both reading against the grain and “constantly [engaging] in dialogue” to work in tandem with the original poem, Waddington
"John William Waterhouse's Ulysses and the Sirens." John William Waterhouse's Ulysses and the Sirens. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
The ancient Greeks have brought upon numerous ideas, inventions, and stories to the world. Greek mythology influences modern day literature and life. The Odyssey is an epic poem written by Homer, which tells the story of Odysseus's journey home after the Trojan War. Odysseus does not achieve his goal of reaching home so easily; monsters and gods come in his way and hinder him. The Odyssey expresses Greek values of hospitality from the customs of Ithaca, humility from Odysseus’s reform, and loyalty from Odysseus’s family.
Alfred Tennyson breaks away from the pastoral discourse that is typical of the Romantic Age and transcends into the Victorian Age with a poem full of obsession, madness, death, love, and patriotism in his creation of Maud. In Maud, the state of the speaker’s life and his mental health are called into question from the very beginning. The speaker’s initial mental state is one of madness, a melancholic, morbidity that has been influenced by the suicide of his father into a persona that is not perfect or happy, but a disturbed man with nothing to recommend him to a higher state. We see this morbid side immediately when he says, “I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, / Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood- / red heath, / The red-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, / And Echo there, whatever is asked her, answers / “Death.” (I,1-4). The speaker is already preoccupied with death and loss. He is all about thinking in extremes. The extremes of death, love, loss, and patriotism permeate his personality with such intensity that everything in his life is an obsession. The intensity of the character creates a situation where he never operates in the middle. He is always very high or very low either in anguish or happiness. It can be argued that his madness resonates as different phases of obsessions and that sanity at the end is not an arguable point as the reader never actually sees him operating within a sane situation. The speaker’s patriotic discourse in Part III is just one more obsession, another faucet of his internal madness that has found an alternate focus. The speaker’s is caught in a weave of madness that is present throughout ...
In The Odyssey written by Homer and translated by Richard Lattimore, several themes are made evident, conceived by the nature of the time period, and customs of the Greek people. These molded and shaped the actual flow of events and outcomes of the poem. Beliefs of this characteristic were represented by the sheer reverence towards the gods and the humanities the Greek society exhibited, and are both deeply rooted within the story.
Southam, B.C. “Tennyson.” Writers and Their Works : NO 218. London: Longman Group, 1971. p.6. print.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. "The Lady of Shalott." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et al. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000. 1204-1208.
The subject of this poem is drawn from a line in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure: ‘‘Mariana in the moated grange.’’ This describes a young woman waiting for her lover Angelo, who has abandoned her upon the loss of her dowry. From the outset Tennyson creates an impression of profound disrepair and decrepitude, the ‘sheds’ are left broken and abandoned, the thatch is ‘worn’ and covered in weeds. Everything is coated in rust, moss or dust, unmoving, inactive and still. This strong suggestion of stagnation recurs throughout, and is emphasized by the refrain of the poem:
The poem is based on Lord Tennyson describing of a huge sea monster that is
A brief but powerful poem written by the great Victorian poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Eagle is an inspiring poetic piece. Tennyson, recognized as the greatest poet in Victorian England, was distinguished as poet laureate in1850. Readers from all over looked to his poems for advice on the major issues effecting their lives. Tennyson began writing poetry when he was ten and published his first book of poetry with the help of his brother, Poems by Two Brothers. In 1830 Tennyson published the first volume of verse to appear under his own name, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. For twelve years after that Tennyson took a break from writing due to death of a close friend. He returned to poetry and in 1842 published Poems, a two-volume collection. Tennyson was so skillful in molding the English language in rhyme and rhythm that his poetry is as popular today as it was 150 years ago. This can be proven by one of Tennyson’s deepest and most symbolic poems, The Eagle. The poem's facade tells of a great American symbol, an eagle, watching over the sea as the leader of the land. Deeper down the poem tells of getting older and trying to hold to life enjoy the time you have.
To me, Ulysses was a necessary evil, in that I thought that I would not be able to call myself a literature student unless I had read the entire novel. While my journey through Ulysses was laden with moments of bewilderment, exasperation, and self-pity, I was able to power my way through the novel with a deeper appreciation for the way James Joyce was able to create a linear story told through a series of non-linear writing styles. In retrospect, the grueling challenge of reading Ulysses made me a better student, in that I was able to grow as a reader by adjusting myself to Joyce’s train-of-thought writing style, and that I could add Ulysses to my personal canon of academic literature.
“The Odyssey” is an epic poem that tells the story of Odysseus and the story of his many travels and adventures. The Odyssey tells the main character’s tale of his journey home to the island of Ithaca after spending ten years fighting in the Trojan War, and his adventures when he returns home and he is reunited with his family and close friends. This literary analysis will examine the story and its characters, relationships, major events, symbols and motifs, and literary devices.
Tennyson, Alfred. "Ulysses." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 7th ed.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was one of the most famous poets of the Victorian era, some of his most famous poems include Ulysses, In Memoriam or Lady of Shalott. This paper will focus on his poem published in 1830 entitled Mariana. Mariana is Tennyson's well known poem, inspired by the charactre of the same name in shakespear's play Measure for Measure. T.S Eliot heard in Mariana 'something new happening in English verse”, and critics such as Carol Christ or Dwight Culler have “commented preceptively on its use of atomistic detail to create a landscape of strangeness appropriate to this sick-spirited maiden”. Mariana is a complex poem it is both a lyrical poem and a pathetic fallacy.
Cleverly , Rachael . "A Hero Among Men, A Man Among Heroes." Critical Analysis of Tennyson's Ulysses