Tennyson’s “Ulysses” as a philosophical poem on life and death.

While Tennyson’s “Lotos-Eaters” breathes the very spirit of luxurious repose, “Ulysses” is the incarnation
of restlessness and insatiable activity. “Ulysses” takes the form of the dramatic monologue as it is written in the
first person, and the narrative persona, Ulysses is quite distinct from the poet. Ulysses speaks to a silent audience,
evidently his mariners who have ‘toil'd, and wrought, and thought’ with him. The monologue begins with
Ulysses expressing his contempt for the idle royal duties and the cold domestic life: ‘It little profits that an idle
king/By this still hearth, among these barren crags, /That hoard and steep and feed and know not me.’ We
are reminded of Hamlet’s soliloquy: "What is a man, / If his chief good and market of his time / Be but to
sleep and feed? A beast, no more." Sick of Ithaca, Argus, Telemachus, and of Penelope too, the old, much-
enduring Mariner King, Ulysses, is again panting for untried dangers and undiscovered lands. The ‘still hearth’
and the ‘barren crags’ symbolise cold domesticity and sterile royal duties respectively. Ulysses is dissatisfied with
the unequal laws of the land and does not like to ‘mete and dole…unto a savage race.’ The Ithacans are called
savage race since they ‘hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me (Ulysses).’

Ulysses reveals himself a hard, self-contained individual, scornful of his people and a stranger to softer
affections. The next twenty-seven lines serve the same purpose by telling us of his enthusiasms. He yearns for a
life of adventure. He passionately longs for newer experiences and knowledge. He wants to 'drink life to the
lees' before death intervenes. He has seen different countries, people and governments and have absorbed in
himself all he has seen. The more he experiences, the more he thirsts for them. He wants to devote every hour
saved from death for fresh experiences: ‘Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'/Gleams that untravell'd
world whose margin fades/For ever and forever when I move.’

The dramatic monologue also reveals the character of Telemachus- his son who will inherit his title of
King. He describes him as “blameless” and “decent not to fail”, ending the reference to his son with “He works
his work, I mine.” Telemachus is prudent and without blemish. He knows how to civilize the 'rugged people' by
slow prudence. He is efficient and more fitted than his father to perform common duties. He has tenderness and
is fond of worshiping his household gods.

As the tone of the dramatic monologue changes into that of a public address as he addresses his trusted
mariners: ‘My mariners.’ He then moves on to talk of death and its consequences- “Death closes all: but
something ere the end, /Some work of noble note, may yet be done”, his acceptance of death’s reality
juxtaposed against his overwhelming zeal for exploration heightening the sense of purpose to a possible extent of
foolishness. The final line, “To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield”, exemplifies all that is revealed about
Ulysses in the monologue. Critics including Gustave Dore` have traced satanic undertone in the concluding line
of the poem. Modern critics read the poem as Tennyson’s exploration of personal grief for Hallam’s death. In the
poem voyaging becomes a means of combatting death for Ulysses as well as for Tennyson. According to Linda
Hughes, the emotional gulf between the state of his domestic affairs and the loss of his special friendship informs
the reading of "Ulysses"—particularly its treatment of domesticity. At one moment, Ulysses' discontent seems to
mirror that of Tennyson, who would have been frustrated with managing the house in such a state of grief.