Tennyson’s Ulysses

Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is a lyrical continuation of the quest and life of Homer’s Odysseus. Starting shortly after Ulysses (Odysseus) returns home, “Ulysses” relates the difficulties experienced in adjusting to domestic life, his sheer boredom with the duties of being king, and his hunger for more travel and adventure. “Ulysses” explores the concept of the quest and the meaning of a life worth living, especially a life worth living for a man who had already lived life beyond the norm. Through “Ulysses,” Tennyson demonstrates that the quest is more than just an adventure: it is living life fully.

The relatively simple, staid life of a king does not compare to the life Ulysses led as a traveler. To Ulysses, simple breathing is just mere existence (24). The life of a king – a life more than challenging enough for most mortals – does not compare to the life led as an adventurer. While there is some undercurrent of contempt towards the “normal” life of a king, there is also acknowledgement that the duties of a king do have some challenges, challenges that do require an honorable, just, intelligent, and capable man. Ulysses finds his “well-loved” son is the right man to take on the life he leaves behind (35). After all, the life he leaves to his son is, in essence, also a quest, albeit not a quest challenging enough for Ulysses. For Ulysses, a life worth living is not the life of his son: working to be an honorable king, paying “adoration to [the] household gods,” settling petty disputes of “a savage race” (4) and civilizing “rugged people” (38). The life of a king is a quest for his son to live: “he works his work, I mine” (43). His son’s life and path are not his life and path – nor is his path that of his son. The life for Ulysses is the life he has spent most of his years living: adventure, travel, learning, exploring, constantly being challenged and living up to those challenges. In a word: living a quest.

The quest is not mere wanderlust. It is not simply being a tourist. The quest is not the arrival at a distant land: it is the path followed and adventures experienced on the way. It is the bond created by shared experiences with his fellow adventurers, the “souls that have toiled, … wrought, and thought with me” (46). The quest is the stretching of his own intelligence and cunning as he gets into and out of various troubles. It is the people met along the way, the learning of their ways, the give-and-take always experienced when meeting new people. It is the knowledge of other cultures, of being “a part of all that I have met” (18). After all, the unknown teases him. The quest is not for more fame or fortune, for he has more than enough of that. It is for the quest itself and for being part of the quest. It is, by all stretch of the word, adventure. Ultimately, the quest is living life as fully as possible: doing what one loves and enjoys more than anything else.

Aging and the loss of the strength of youth need not stop one from pursuing a quest, and they most definitely don’t stop Ulysses. For Ulysses, it is never “too late to seek a newer world,” (57) for “work of noble note may yet be done” (52). The adventures of youth are worthy adventures, worthy quests, but they are also the groundwork for further adventures. While “death closes all,” death is no reason or excuse to not live life to the fullest (51). On the contrary, it is far better to die living life fully and doing what is loved and what makes one feel most alive: the quest itself. Aging may have weakened the body, but it has not weakened the mind or the will at all. If anything, aging may have strengthened the mind and will, and brought even more wisdom to be used while pursuing the next quest.

Ultimately, the quest is not a single adventure or a series of adventures: it is a way of life. It is living life doing what makes one feel most alive, it is being a part of the world at large, and it is being a part of something bigger than the individuals involved. The quest and a life worth living are the same: “[t]o strive, to seek, to find, and [never] yield” to routine and tedium. The quest is life itself: a life worth living.

Works Cited

Tennyson, Lord Alfred. “Ulysses.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature: 1800 to 1900. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. 885-887.

Written for Professor Stephenson's Masterpieces of Literature II class at Pikes Peak Community College, 5th April 2004.