Ulysses (poem): Meter

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Tennyson composed “Ulysses” in blank verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter. (Recall that lines of iambic pentameter consist of five iambs, each of which has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word “en-joy’d.”) By the nineteenth century, blank verse was firmly established as the meter of choice for English-language poets working on serious subjects. Five-foot lines were considered ideal because they approximate the cadence of natural speech and hence avoided the sing-song quality associated with tetrameter. The avoidance of end-rhyme further elevates the pentameter line, enabling it to project the characteristic sense of nobility that has led to its also being called “heroic verse.” Christopher Marlowe was the first to popularize the use of blank verse in English poetry in the late sixteenth century. Shakespeare then masterfully showcased the versatility of the meter in his plays. Later still, John Milton used blank verse for his great epic, Paradise Lost (1667). Thus, in choosing to write in blank verse, Tennyson adopted a metrical form with a renowned historical pedigree, one that reflects the dignified refinement of his kingly speaker.

Throughout “Ulysses,” Tennyson maintains a fairly regular use of iambic pentameter, though with a few minor deviations that give the language more textural interest. Most noteworthy are Tennyson’s insertions of a metrical foot known as a spondee, which consists of two stressed syllables. For a representative example, consider the poem’s five opening lines:

It litt- / le pro- / fits that / an i- / dle king,
By this / still hearth, / a-mong / these bar- / ren crags,
Match’d with / an a- / ged wife, / I mete / and dole
Un-e- / qual laws / un-to / a sa- / vage race,
That hoard, / and sleep, / and feed, / and know / not me.

Only the first and the fourth lines are written in strict iambic pentameter. The third line begins with a trochee (stressed–unstressed), which introduces a simple metrical variation. The more unusual variations appear in the second and fifth lines, each of which incorporates a spondee. In both cases, Tennyson uses the spondee to slow the meter down and add emphasis. In the second line, for instance, the speaker uses the spondee’s relative slowness to emphasize his frustration with the idleness of his life as a king, trapped by the “still hearth” of his home. The slowing effect of the spondee is more pronounced in the fifth line, where it appears at the end of a list whose rhythmic regularity gives an impression of acceleration. Only in the line’s final foot does the speaker slow down to emphasize how his subjects know “not me.”