1. Background
Ulysses was first published in 1842, but it was composed not long after Tennyson's intimate friend Arthur Henry Hallam's death in 1833. Tennyson said that it "was written under the sense of loss, and that all had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end." This striking poem not only shows Tennyson as an individual in the mood of great courage, but also reflects the unrest common aspirations of the period.
Ulysses is a legendary Greek hero and king of Ithaca in the Odyssey, an epic by Homer. In Latin he was known as Ulixes, which has been converted into Ulysses. He also occurs in Homer's Iliad, where he is famous among the Greek leaders for his wise advice. In the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, his wisdom shows mere cunning, but Shakespeare in his Troilus and Cressida shows him as the same politician, making the best of a bad Greek world. This legendary hero has also been recast in varied ways in the works of Joyce and many other writers.
According to Homer in his Iliad, Odysseus joined the other Greek princes in the expedition to recover Helen, wife of Menelaus, who had been abducted to Troy by a Trojan prince named Paris. On his voyage home from the ten-year Trojan War, he met with a series of misfortunes, and was forced to wander for another ten years before reaching Ithaca. When he arrived at home, he and his son Telemachus and the swineherd, Eumaeus, killed the importunate suitors of his faithful wife Penelope.
However, in Tennyson’s poem, Tennyson’s interpretation of the hero is a modification of Dante's version of Inferno (XXVI, 85-142). Tennyson presents Ulysses, after his return to Ithaca, as a restless heroic wanderer who is about to set out for another voyage of exploration to the west from which he will never return.
2. The ideas of the poem summarized
This poem is written in the form of blank verse, dramatic monologue. The sole speaker in the poem is Ulysses and the listeners are his fellow mariners. Back at home from ten-year's wandering on the sea, Ulysses first examines his present life as an idle king of Ithaca and finds it little profitable with his aged wife and the savage race (section one). Then in retrospect, he finds that he has seen much, known much, suffered and enjoyed greatly in the past. Now he has become a mere name to his people. He realizes that "all experience is an arch” and beyond it there is still “untraveled world" for exploration. He finds it dull and abhorrent "to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!" Therefore he makes up his mind to save every hour for something new before death and drink life to the lees by embarking on anther voyage of exploration "to follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought." (Section two)
In section three, the speaker expresses his confidence in his son who has the ideal personality for the ruler Ithaca needs. He is tenderhearted, prudent, and dutiful with decent qualities and discerning power to fulfill all the work, both national and household. In one word, his son is blameless that he can now leave the island by entrusting all the duties on him.
Everything being ready, the speaker, in the last section, calls on his fellow mariners to set sail to a newer world. Although he is aware of his old age, declining strength and impending death, he is full of confidence that "Old age hath yet his honor and his toil", and that "It is not too late to seek a newer world." and "something ere the end, / Some work of noble note, may yet be done”. So, the speaker, together with his friends, vigorously pushes off with "one equal temper of heroic hearts" and a strong will "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
3. Theme of the poem
Tennyson himself stated that the poem expressed his own "need of going forward and braving the struggle of life" after the death of his friend Hallam. It is clear that Tennyson presents Ulysses as a symbol of the human desires for experience, prowess, courage, adventure, and knowledge.
Throughout the poem are words and phrases that reinforce this reading. Ulysses is now an elderly king, but he abhors materialistic life and finds it of little profit to be an idle king only to "mete and dole / Unequal laws unto a savage race." He wants to continue his exploration and live life to the fullest so as to increase his knowledge. Ulysses will never “go gently into that good night,” to use Dylan Thomas’s phrase.
It is Tennyson’s past experience that shapes his present character. He is an active, vibrant character who wants to experience as much as possible in life. To him, life is not merely to breathe. He is fully aware of the fact that "Life piled upon life / Were all too little, and of one to me / Little remains". Therefore, old as he is, he still yearns to follow knowledge, and to achieve something new and more before the end. The speaker's geographical exploration into the west symbolizes intellectual exploration. What noble spirit he shows when he says that the aged are "Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods"! In spite of the fact that "much is taken" and that time and fate have made them week, he is still strong in will "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Tennyson in this poem has successfully and vividly portrayed an aged hero who represents a life of continuous aspiration.
（何功杰：《英诗研究与探幽》）
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发表于 2010-12-28 15:28:47