Luckily, Tennyson gives Ulysses sufficient charisma to keep him in the readers' good graces. The poem "Ulysses" would have been lost in bathos if Tennyson had left his protagonist stuck in these ruts of all-too human pride and restlessness. Ulysses yearns for adventure purely for adventure's sake, because he finds the life that everyone else must lead too dull to bear. He does not have the will-power to carry out his quotidian responsibilities though he had strength enough to endure war and hardship, he cannot now muster the strength to endure a pleasant retirement. Yet he seems to have gained nothing from the experience but an unquenchable thirst for more. Ulysses spent his entire life on the road, consorting with generals, kings, even gods, visiting "cities of men / And manners, climates, councils, governments" (13-14). In addition to his arrogance, Ulysses possesses a level of irresponsibility few of us have the luxury to afford. The two friends had spent much time discussing poetry and philosophy, writing verse, and travelling in southern France, the Pyrenees, and Germany. These traits, he sneers, are harmless but hardly worthy of great men like himself. Tennyson penned 'Ulysses' after the death of his close Cambridge friend, the poet Arthur Henry Hallam (18111833), with whom Tennyson had a strong emotional bond. He devotes lines 33-43 to mocking his son's "slow prudence," blamelessness, and decency. THE LAST LINES OF ULYSSES Gregory Tate In March 201 1 the final line of Tennysons Ulysses was selected as the inscription for a wall in the athletes village at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Ulysses maintains his tone of superiority throughout the first two-thirds of the poem, not sparing even his own child. He treats his loyal subjects, whom he ought to rule with wisdom gained from so much experience, as a complete subspecies, "a savage race, / That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me" (4-5). Nothing suits his taste: his homeland is barren his wife is too old. Ulysses does not gracefully acquiesce to the duties of old age as one would expect he whines like a spoiled child. The inital contrast between myth and man comes within the first few lines. 'Ulysses' was written in 1833 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the future Poet Laureate of Great Britain. And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour. Ulysses's humanity allows us to realize the hero in ourselves. Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. The one clear difference between the two comes in the form of a creative. Were he entirely flawless, he would be out of the realm of readers' experience though we would admire him, we would not see ourselves in him as we do in Tennyson's poem. Ulysses is Odysseus, and in many ways Odysseus is Ulysses, thanks to later translations that readily blend them. Yet in spite of his faults - indeed, because of his faults - Ulysses has power to inspire. This Ulysses feels unrepentant contempt for his home, for the people who have cheered him on and anxiously awaited his return from battle.
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