A Restless Domesticity
In Tennyson’s “Ulysses”, Ulysses speaks to us as an old man, having taken his last adventurous voyage at sea. He is old, weary, and no longer able to live the carefree life of an adventurer. While he no longer lives his life on the open waters, there is but one journey left to experience: death. He will not die at sea, sailing to unknown lands or navigating, uncharted waters. Death will come for him in Ithaca, on land, while living a common, disdainful, domestic life. Ulysses is aware that death is upon him and has accepted it, as much as a man whose life has been nothing but adventure, can accept it, and he spends a lot of time lamenting that he had more time to learn new things and gain valuable knowledge of things a domesticated man will never know. It is said that Tennyson drew his inspiration for the poem of “Ulysses” from Dante’s Inferno (1314), using Dante’s character as the protagonist for the poem. While many men in Ulysses” situation would concern themselves with starting a new life in their domestic state, Ulysses concerns himself with Ulysses, thirsting for more adventures, loathing the simple, hum-drum everyday life that others in Ithaca seem to be content with living. Throughout his life, he has routinely abstained from it, avoided it at all costs, preferring to experience adventure by sea, not realizing the strain it has placed on his family and the domestic responsibilities that come with being a husband and a father. The yearning for adventure while neglecting domestic duties associated with family life are conflicting sides of Tennyson, himself an old man; the responsible social being versus the melancholy poet. One is completely ignorant to the existence of the other. Ulysses continually struggles with his transcendence from sea faring lion to domesticated housecat, and it is this transcendence that is symbolic of his defiance of his newly found circumstances. It is through this struggle that Tennyson presents a way of transcending Victorian complacency with his melancholy poetic authority.
The sands of time run sift through the hour glass, stopping for no one, and although the mind is willing, the flesh is weak. Stubbornness sets in, and one continues to do the things they have always done, refusing to change. Settling into domesticity, Ulysses can find little happiness in the “still hearth” (2); a metaphor explaining the life that he now leads versus his former life of a carefree sea captain and explorer. All that is left of his former life are a few fleeting memories and a bunch of exciting stories that will fade with his aging brain. Ulysses describes his wife as “aged” and like his present state, domestic (3). She is and has been content with the domestic life, having no real interest in adventure, preferring to live out her life in Ithaca: a land of “barren crags”, again, a metaphor for the sterile state that has become Ulysses’ life (2). He “metes and doles”, providing for her in a domestic capacity (3). Ulysses abhors his domestic life, and Tennyson rails against the Victorian complacency that “hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me” (5), saying that those who submit to domesticity are a “savage race”, living a barely tolerable existence.
Ulysses does not want just a tolerable existence. He wants to live a fulfilled life “to the lees” whether it be alone or indulging with his band of merry men that sailed with him (7). In this instance, “lees refer to the sediment at the bottom of a wine barrel (7). He has traversed the “scudding drifts” and “made a name”, meaning through his exploits, he has become well known, longing to etch his name in the annals of history and be remembered for all eternity. History does not immortalize domesticity, explaining his need to continually seek out adventure rather than be a spectator on the sidelines, watching life pass him by.
There was no GPS or Google maps in Ulysses’ time. The phrase “windy Troy” refers to how Ulysses traveled, wherever the wind took him (17). It also comes from Homer’s Illiad (8 B.C.), the legendary city of Troy. This, once again, refers to Ulysses aspiration to become legendary, but one cannot become legendary if one does not commit legendary acts for “Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades”, meaning Ulysses feats will soon be forgotten in his domestic state (20). He uses a metaphor of swordplay to illustrate this notion when he says, “rusting unburnished not to shine in use” soon after the action has died away or it has lost its innate value (23). Even though Ulysses has been blessed with the adventurous life he has led, it still is not enough to quench his insatiable thirst for cultivation of new knowledge and new experiences. It would be his time rather than wait complacently for that “eternal silence”, namely death (27). His experience has granted him a wealth of knowledge, gained from his journeys at sea, but he longs for three more years “three suns to store and hoard himself” of such escapades (29). He wishes to immerse himself in knowledge like a “sinking star” (31). In Latin, “aster” means “star” while “disaster” means “diseased star”. Ulysses wishes for more time to learn and experience new things and new adventures, to shine brightly like a star. Unfortunately, death is at his door, much like a diseased star that will soon die out and fall from the sky.
As is the course of life, old gives way to new, Ulysses introduces his son, Telemachus, to whom he leaves “the scepter and the isle" (34); staff and kingdom. Ulysses raves about his son, standing in awe of how worthy Telemachus appears, assuring us how he will be able to “make mild the rugged people” (37) or civilize the uncivilized. He is “of common duties, decent not to fail”; dedicated his life to the will of the gods and smart enough to do the right things as not to fail the gods. Ulysses explicitly trusts his twenty something year old son, placing the future of Ithaca in his hands, respecting his insightful, pragmatic decisions. Ulysses’ sentiment is that of litotes or understatement that Telemachus is the better version of his father.
Every man dreams of making his mark in the world, hoping for his name to be etched in the annals of history, being remembered as a legend for eternity. Ulysses is no different, addressing his “mariners” and motivating them to find and conquer that which has yet to be seen (45). Time is running out for them as they have “grown old” (49). Yet they are not dead and still have time to write their names in the history books. Though they are weak in bodily strength, they are strong in mind and intellectual ability. He punctuates the creation of the myth with “Happy Isles", illustrating to us his vision of paradise; the place Achilles ascended after his death (63). Speaking the truth as he knows it, he inspires them, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” (70). Ulysses continues with the notion that even though he and his sailors have grown old, succumbing to the naturalness of time, they are not yet dead and still have a little gas left in their tanks. They have gelled into a strong, centralized, cohesive team with open eyes and full hearts. They are now old and broken, but they still have the will to seek out and face new challenges without giving up. This is how Ulysses has lived his life, and he will damn sure not change now. He does not know how nor does he choose to.