Full disclosure: I am currently writing an essay on this poem, but I am nearly done with it and opened this thread just to satisfy my curiosity.
It seems that the main schools of thought on “Ulysses” are that
- It is entirely serious, glorifying Ulysses’s valor and nobility of character
- It is ironic, pointing out the deficiencies of Ulysses character in his easy abandonment of his duties to satisfy his yearning for adventure
- It’s a bad poem, as evidenced by the inconsistencies in tone leading to the divergent interpretations 1 and 2.
While interpretation 1 was most prominent during Tennyson’s time, interpretation 2 began gaining supportrs during the 1950s. I was wondering how Dopers feel about these interpretations, and which they feel is most valid.
I’ll go for door #4…
Just reading it, I am going to have to go that it is about old age. The reader himself would be Ulysses and remniscing his own past glories and how all that has gotten him is a wife he doesn’t love, a child who he hopes will have learned from him–but now lives away doing his own thing, and little to do but watch the still powerful and ponder that, and look out over the ocean and feel his death approaching.
I got very little sense of either honoring the mythical Ulysses nor of belittling him–nor would I see what the point would be in actually writing about the mythical Ulysses unless you wanted to expand on the story. This doesn’t add to that story any, instead just following the thoughts and eye of the character as those wander. Very muc more he comes out as an old man and a father–an everyman for anyone in that position.
And as to whether it is well written or not…eh, I found it a bit light. I note that Tennyson himself was not all that old when he wrote it, so I can see it lacking some weight there.
I don’t think Alfred, Lord Tennyson ever heard of irony.
As to the poem, it’s one of my favorites. Its a bittersweet ode to how a hero can’t just settle down and retire - the very traits that made him heroic are the ones that will always deny him rest. Adventurers gotta adventure.