Ulysses (poem): Historical and Literary Context

The British Romantic Poets

Although Tennyson was an outstanding figure of the Victorian Age, “Ulysses” clearly shows the influence of the British Romantics. First, though the poem is perhaps best characterized as a dramatic monologue, it shares many characteristics that are central to the lyric poetry that thrived during the Romantic period. To be sure, lyric poetry existed prior to the Romantics. Any poem with a first-person speaker who expresses their inner state of mind can be classified as a lyric. However, British Romantic poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge brought renewed attention to the form, and Victorian poets like Tennyson carried that form forward. But even more important than the traces of the lyric tradition are the poem’s central values of individual self-assertion and rebellion against bourgeois conformity. The significance of these themes may be seen in the typical Romantic response to John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). From William Blake on, the Romantic poets unanimously celebrated Milton’s depiction of Satan, who they felt justly rebelled against a tyrannical God. The ideals of individualism and rebellion are central to “Ulysses,” which is all about abandoning the comforts of complacency to pursue a life of individual achievement.

Literary Depictions of Ulysses

As a poem that takes up a legendary character, it’s important to situate “Ulysses” in relation to other literary depictions of the same figure. The earliest and most famous accounts of Ulysses appear in the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, who referred to this character by his Greek name, Odysseus. After playing a secondary role in the Iliad, Odysseus becomes the main protagonist in the Odyssey, which tells of his ten-year struggle to get home after the end of the Trojan War. Though thwarted at every turn by gods and demigods, Odysseus uses his formidable intelligence and cunning to escape danger, eventually making it home to Ithaca. Tennyson’s poem picks up some years after Homer’s leaves off. Opting to use the Latin form of this hero’s name, Tennyson reflects the influence of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, who famously featured Ulysses in canto 26 of the Inferno (1472). In Dante’s version, Ulysses never returned to Ithaca. Instead, he convinced his crew to set out a new voyage to the Strait of Gibraltar, where they all perished. Though retaining Homer’s timeline, Tennyson clearly echoes Dante’s idea of one last fateful journey of exploration. The figure of Ulysses has continued to inspire works of literature and film, including James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (1922) and the Coen brothers’ film O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000).