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Literary influences Victorian era
Literary influences Victorian era
Essay about the victorian era in literature
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The idea of “recycling” old literature is not a foreign concept. Many authors either reference old tales, or mention a character from them in their own stories. Similar to what Dante did, with Achilles and Desdemona in Hell, and Virgil with his story of the Aeneid. As the Romantic Movement turned into the Victorian Era, many poets began to reflect on classic literature of great empires and powerful heroes, similar to what the Greeks had with The Iliad and The Odyssey. English poets used this concept more and more the further they got into their Victorian Era, reminding the people that even though they may be in the decline of their powerful reign, they still have a few things up their sleeves. Lord Tennyson wrote Ulysses to get this exact point across. In Ulysses, Ulysses has grown old, yet he still plans “to sail beyond the sunset”, and even though he has aged, he has accepted it as the gaining of knowledge, and he has acceptance of life with which he sees with optimism. That journey has “ a double meaning; in ancient times, the final voyage had for destination the Underworld” (Sabin).
In the text, Ulysses has accepted his old age, and plans to sail, to the “baths of all the western stars, until I die”. This refers to him that even though he is old, and most people, even in his own kingdom, no longer know who he is, he’s going to do something great which is going to be reverberated across the world once again. “Ulysses's quest is truly one of continuing aspiration: his thirst for new knowledge will never be satisfied; he will continue to seek new knowledge until he dies” (Tennyson, “Ulysses”). Tennyson wrote this poem to remind England that they can still do something that will put them back on the map. By speaking through ...
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...purpose, as England got back in the race.
Works Cited
Landow, George P., ed. Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Victorian Web, 9 Feb. 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. .
Lord Tennyson, Alfred. Ulysses. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Stephen Greenblatt et al. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1962-4. Print. 07 April 2014.
Sabin, Lisa, ed. Symbols in Ulysses. Under The Western Acacia, 6 Nov. 2010. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. .
Tennyson, “Ulysses.” N.p., 2014. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. .
’Ulysses’ by Tennyson as a Dramatic Monologue. N.p., 2014. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. .