How did people treat Ulysses in different places in the poem Lord Tennyson? For two marks.
Answers
"Ulysses" was written in 1833 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the future Poet Laureate of Great Britain. The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue spoken by Ulysses, a character who also appears in Homer's Greek epic The Odyssey and Dante's Italian epic the Inferno (Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus). In The Odyssey, Ulysses/Odysseus struggles to return home, but in Tennyson's "Ulysses," an aged Ulysses is frustrated with domestic life and yearns to set sail again and continue exploring the world. Dante seems to condemn Ulysses's recklessness as an explorer, but in Tennyson's poem, there is nobility and heroism in Ulysses' boundless curiosity and undaunted spirit.
Answer:
Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is a popular example of the dramatic monologue. Facing old age, mythical hero Ulysses describes his discontent and restlessness upon returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, after his far-ranging travels. Despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, Ulysses yearns to explore again.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, author of "Ulysses", portrayed by George Frederic Watts
The character of Ulysses (in Greek, Odysseus) has been explored widely in literature. The adventures of Odysseus were first recorded in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (c. 800–700 BC), and Tennyson draws on Homer's narrative in the poem. Most critics, however, find that Tennyson's Ulysses recalls Dante's Ulisse in his Inferno (c. 1320). In Dante's re-telling, Ulisse is condemned to hell among the false counsellors, both for his pursuit of knowledge beyond human bounds and for creating the deception of the Trojan horse.
For much of this poem's history, readers viewed Ulysses as resolute and heroic, admiring him for his determination "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield".[1] The view that Tennyson intended a heroic character is supported by his statements about the poem, and by the events in his life—the death of his closest friend—that prompted him to write it. In the twentieth century, some new interpretations of "Ulysses" highlighted potential ironies in the poem. They argued, for example, that Ulysses wishes to selfishly abandon his kingdom and family, and they questioned more positive assessments of Ulysses' character by demonstrating how he resembles flawed protagonists in earlier literature.