“How dull it is to pause, to make an end /
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!” (22-23) Thus speaks the aged Greek
hero in Tennyson’s famous poem “Ulysses” as the king contemplates the futility
of life, bemoaning the passing of his youth. Although widely celebrated as a
majestic piece that exhorts us to press onward in the face of grief, “Ulysses”
contains yet a deeper meaning that Tennyson suggests using both the poem’s
language and its tone – underneath the surface, “Ulysses” is a lament that
muses with regret upon the vanity of a life wasted chasing after adventure. As
Charles C. Walcutt of Michigan State Normal College writes, “The voice which
speaks is not that of a trumpet, clear-throated and vigorous; it is the
mournful sighing of strings” (Walcutt, 1946). Tennyson conveys his theme of
regret using the following literary tools – tone and word choice.
Tone is a powerful element of “Ulysses” –
Tennyson portrays the attitudes and overall character of his poem using the
aged warrior’s expression of feeling. Throughout its development, the hero of “Ulysses”
articulates a broad range of emotions, from his initial frustrated reflections on
his current situation, to his final determination to experience one last
adventure before death – from “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. / I cannot rest from travel” (3-6) to “ ‘Tis not too late to seek
a newer world…To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western
stars, until I die” (56-61)
In the opening lines of “Ulysses,”
Tennyson paints his readers a picture of an elderly Greek king sitting by an
empty fireplace, lamenting the monotony of his current life. This emotion of
frustration however quickly gives way to nostalgia, as Ulysses muses fondly
upon his past adventures:
Much
have I seen and known, - cities of men
And
manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself
not least, but honored of them all, -
And
drink delight of battle with my peers,
Far
on the singing plains of windy Troy. (13-17)
Then Ulysses turns to reflecting upon his
son Telemachus and upon the differences between their characters – he observes that
Telemachus seems contented with his lot governing the people of Ithaca, while
Ulysses still feels restlessness in his own heart; “He works his work, I mine”
(43). Ulysses next passes from thoughts of his son to contemplations of death and
old age. His attitude towards death is similar to that of the Preacher in
Ecclesiastes: “This also is vanity. For there is no more remembrance of the
wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the
days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool!” (Ecc. 2:15-16). Likewise
Ulysses exclaims, “As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life / Were all
too little, and of one to me” (24-25), implying that just because he breathes
doesn’t mean he feels alive – in fact, he feels
his death drawing near, and the thought that “Death closes all” (51) fills him
with a growing sense of despair. Ulysses has come to the same realization as
the Preacher – no matter how many great deeds he’s accomplished during his
lifetime, death is the inevitable end of all men. There is no escape from
mortality.
The last emotion expressed by Ulysses in
this poem is one of renewed, grim, and almost reckless determination to
experience one final adventure before death overtakes him: “Come, my friends, /
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world” (56-57). Tennyson enforces the
despairing tone of his poem with this dramatic conclusion, in which Ulysses exhorts
his fellow-mariners to join him once more on a sea-voyage. He cries,
Tho’
much is taken much abides; and tho’
We
are not now that strength which in old days
Moved
earth and heaven, that which we are, we are (65-67)
The reader is never told whether or not Ulysses
actually carries out his plan for a journey – he may have simply been dreaming
of one last glorious adventure before death. As Walcutt states, “The effect of
the poem is nearer to being an evocation of the state of mind of an aged
warrior who dreams of former glory than it is to being the actual beginning of
a new heroic quest” (Walcutt, 1946). The 16th
century Italian poet Dante describes Ulysses’ final journey in his poem The Inferno, and according to Dante’s version,
Ulysses and his crew perish a watery death because of the wrath of Zeus: “The
poop rose and the bow went down / till the sea closed over us and the light was
gone” (130-131). Whether or not Ulysses actually set out on this final
adventure and was lost at sea is not revealed in Tennyson’s text, but the
expression of Ulysses’ emotion is the same
– he senses the futility of his life and is frustrated with the impotence of
old age. His solution is to turn to glorious visions of battles and adventures,
which he thinks will bring him the happiness he lacks.
Throughout the poem “Ulysses,” the
aged Greek warrior gives voice to a wide array of emotions, ranging from
discontentment to nostalgia to hopelessness to grim determination. Tennyson
sets the tone of his poem through this expression of attitude, but he also conveys
the poem’s deeper themes using word choice and language. There are two specific
passages in “Ulysses” where Tennyson’s word choice particularly strengthens the
sense of futility and hopelessness of this poem.
First of all, Tennyson employs the
use of metaphor when describing Ulysses’ feelings of helplessness. Ulysses
compares himself to an old sword that has seen great deeds in battle but now
sits abandoned and rusty with disuse (22-23) and uses the adjectives “dull”,
“unburnish’d”, and “gray” to describe his sense of feebleness and age (23-30). He
yearns “to follow knowledge like a sinking star” (31). Ulysses’ language and
choice of adjectives in this particular passage strengthen the poem’s sense
of regret and its message of life’s meaninglessness.
Towards the end of the poem,
Tennyson once again employs an implied metaphor when his hero describes the
ending of the day, signifying the closing of his life:
The lights begin to
twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the
slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many
voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to
seek a newer world. (54-57)
Ulysses
realizes that, like the long day waning, his life is also drawing to a close. This
realization seems almost to frighten him, and he grasps for comfort at the only
thing he knows and loves – adventure. Instead of examining himself and
apprehending the futility of the things he has spend his life chasing after, his
conclusion is that, though “death closes all; but something ere the end, / Some
work of noble note, may yet be done, / Not unbecoming men that strove with
Gods” (51-53).
The ultimate message of Tennyson’s
poem “Ulysses” is a deep and powerful one, similar to the final conclusion of
Ecclesiastes; “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and
keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecc. 12:13). The pursuit of
anything else in place of God – whether it be money, power, fame, glory in
battle, or adventure – is fruitless and devoid of meaning. A life wasted
chasing after these things is one that will end in regret and despair, as
Tennyson’s Ulysses comes to partially realize. Tennyson conveys this message
using his hero’s attitudes, expression of feeling, and choice of language – without
God, our lives are meaningless. Without God, we have nothing to turn to when
our end draws near and we begin, like Ulysses, to sense the futility of our
life’s pursuits. And without God, the prospect of death is a frightening one
indeed.
Sources
Dante,
A. (2003). The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the
Paradiso. (J. Ciardi, Trans.) New York, New York: New American Library.
Lord Tennyson, A. (1950). Ulysses. In P. R. Lieder, R. M.
Lovett, & R. K. Root (Eds.), British Poetry and Prose (Third ed.,
Vol. 2, pp. 445-446). Cambridge, MA, United States: The Riverside Press.
Walcutt, C. C. (1946). TENNYSON, Ulysses. Explicator
, IV (28), 3.
My most recent posts are the products of my freshman college assignments - in lit. class this week we had to analyze a particular poem's themes and the poet's methods of communicating those themes. I was pretty excited when I saw that Tennyson was one of the choices. (Because of reasons.) I hope it was as enjoyable to read as it was enjoyable to write.
I have one more big drama paper due which I would like to share as well... and then I promise I will stop posting my college assignments on my blog. (Maybe.)
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