Ulysses (poem): Key Poetic Devices

Alliteration

Alliteration (uh-LIT-er-AY-shun) refers to the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of nearby words. Tennyson uses this technique throughout “Ulysses.” For an example, consider lines 12–14:

For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments

The alliteration in this passage is at once prominent and subtle. All three instances of the technique are sonically distinct due to the different qualities of the consonants: the breathy H, the nasal M, the sharp C. Furthermore, not all the examples of alliteration are found in directly adjacent words. Tennyson has even used alliteration across line endings: the trio of H sounds in the enjambed phrase “hungry heart / Much have” offers a particularly unassuming example. Tennyson’s use of alliteration in the poem has multiple functions. First, it has a sonic function, enriching the language and giving it a self-consciously “poetic” sound. Second, it enhances the sense of connections between individual words. The phrase “hungry heart,” for instance, emphasizes the connection between the human spirit and the deep desire for knowledge and experience. Finally, alliteration often has an ennobling function that enhances the inspirational quality of the speaker’s words, as when he insists to his mariners: “Some work of noble note, may yet be done” (line 52).

Allusion

An allusion (uh-LOO-zhun) is a passing reference to a literary or historical person, place, or event, often made without explicit identification. Allusion plays a major role in Tennyson’s poem, which concerns a mythic hero whose exploits are most notably recounted in the two epics of the Greek poet Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey. “Ulysses” takes place in the period following the Odyssey, which tells of the protagonist’s ten-year struggle to reach his home in Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. Yet Tennyson’s take on this legendary hero also alludes to another account offered by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, in the Inferno. In Dante’s account, Ulysses never returned to Ithaca. Instead, he delivered an inspiring speech and convinced his crew to set out on a new voyage, during which they all perished. Tennyson retains Homer’s timeline but echoes Dante’s idea of one last fateful journey of exploration. In addition to these allusions to classical and medieval texts, Tennyson also alludes to two of Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida. Perhaps the most significant allusion is to Hamlet, which occurs in lines 3–5:

I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

Compare this language to Hamlet, act 4, scene 4, lines 30–32:

What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Enjambment and Caesura

Enjambment (en-JAM-ment) refers to the technique in which one poetic line flows continuously to the next without stopping. Many of the lines in “Ulysses” are enjambed, allowing one line to cascade into the next. Yet the frequency of enjambment doesn’t mean that the poem’s language flows freely throughout. Indeed, Tennyson frequently regulates the flow and pace of the language with midline punctuation, which creates strong pauses and, occasionally, full stops. This type of strong pause within an individual line is known as caesura (say-ZHOO-rah). Taken together, Tennyson’s combined use of enjambment and caesura generates a subtly modulated rhythm. Indeed, the poet’s careful management of these two techniques gives the language a textural complexity that sometimes approximates prose. As an example, consider lines 6–11:

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name[.]

This passage consists entirely of enjambed lines. It also features two distinct types of pause: a shorter pause created by the comma, and a longer pause created by the colon. Taken together, these two techniques break the lines up in unpredictable ways that mimic the cadence of natural speech. Yet the shifting dynamics of the verse might also be said to mirror the speaker’s sense of restlessness on the brink of a new voyage.

Simile and Metaphor

In addition to the speaker’s various rhetorical flourishes throughout the poem, he also makes effective use of two basic forms of figurative language: simile and metaphor. Recall that a simile (SIH-muh-lee) is a figure of speech that explicitly compares two unlike things to each other. A metaphor (MEH-tuh-for), by contrast, makes a more implicit comparison between two unlike things. The speaker uses simile at the end of the first stanza, where he explicitly likens knowledge to a star (lines 31–32):

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Though a bit clichéd, this image nonetheless captures the speaker’s aspiration to reach for something that, by definition, will be impossible to grasp. More original, perhaps, is the speaker’s complex use of metaphor in lines 19–21:

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.

In this passage, Ulysses develops an intriguing metaphor for experience. He initially links experience to an “arch” through which the viewer can see the glittering ocean. This framed view then allows him to imagine a sailor’s point of view as he sails toward the receding horizon. Taken as a whole, this metaphor implies that experience isn’t just something that happened in someone’s past. Instead, it’s more like a lens that frames how a person sees the world and directs them toward new experiences.

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