Reading of a Poem by Tahani Al-Hammami

My First Genuine Reading of Tennyson's 'Ulysses'  *

By Tahani Ali Al-Hammami

            In Alfred Tennyson's dramatic monologue, 'Ulysses', we meet an ambitious persona, the speaker in the poem, who "cannot rest from travel" and who wants to make use of every moment of his life because "some work of noble note, may yet be done", so that people will remember him with that noble work after his death.

            At the very beginning of the poem, we take note that he is an old "idle king" who is "matched with an aged wife". Indeed, we notice clearly the nostalgic tone to the speaker's old days, in the second part of the poem, when he lists the great deeds of his glory times as a young man. He is speaking about these times proudly when he used to travel across the lands and beyond the seas, and when he used to declare wars on cities. Nonetheless, there were some troubles he faced; that is "all times I have enjoyed greatly, I have suffered greatly". This actually reveals to us a universal theme that life can never be a pure joy or a pure toil. It is an opposition going on in human's life; that is, life has its ups-and-downs where no one can live a pure happiness, but there must be weariness and hardship.

            Moreover, we notice well that the speaker in the poem is referring every now and then to his old age which is something intended by him to bring his message to life. Although he is a man with a "gray spirit", which also indicates his old age, but this old gray spirit is "yearning in desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought". This ambitious man, actually, has a message that if we are "made weak by time and fate", we can overcome these obstacles, survive, achieve our aims and never stop to as long as we are "strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"!

            In the third part of this poem, however, we are introduced to his son, Telemachus, who will take his place in the kingdom and "to whom" he "leave(s) the scepter and the isle". Here in this part, we notice the repetition of the word "work" and its synonym "labour" which indicates the importance of work for the human beings if they want to continue living! This emphasis is tended by the speaker, and apparently by the poet himself, who "cannot rest" though he is an old enough, but his age does not stop him and bar him from achieving more and more.

            In the last part of the poem, the persona finally decides to go over the seas with his mariners who are "souls that have toiled" showing that both, the speaker and his mariners, "are old". Nevertheless, they have the desire and the strong will to go on and not "to pause" or "to make an end" to their life before it really ends!! They are men with aged bodies, but with youth hearts and strong determination. Actually, we are met with an interesting persona that has a "hungry heart", i.e. ambitious, that wants to "drink life to the lees" no matter how old he is. In addition to that, we feel here another universal theme that is implicit in the destructive power of time on the human beings. That is, they cannot help but being weak in front of this power. The speaker shows, indeed, how when they grow old, they "are not now that strength in old days" when they "moved earth and heaven" with their strength during youth time.

            Further more, we feel a tone of hope that draws it the opposite images he uses in picturing the old age and then, at the end, when he pictures "the lights begin to twinkle from the rocks". Indeed, we have an optimistic persona where we can see through the darkness of his old age and of his silver beard a hope glittering from his determined eyes, his free heart, and his free forehead. A persona who is passing to us a message that is full of hope and light: "Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world"!

Reference:

-          Alfred Tennyson's 'Ulysses'.

*  The poem was my only source where I analyzed the text before reading any notes about it or any critic's opinion; i.e. (The Text Through My Eyes).