An Explication of Lord Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses"

 “Ulysses”

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, a dramatic monologue is “a kind of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks to a silent ‘audience’.” Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is a well-known example of this form; it is in blank verse –meaning it is in unrhymed iambic pentameter – and is broken into four stanzas. It is about the Greek hero in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. It begins after Ulysses has returned from his adventures and he finds himself living the life of an ‘idle king’. He is reminiscing about his former glory days of adventure and camaraderie with his brothers in arms. He then leaves his kingdom to his sons and calls to his old comrades to ‘push off and seek a ‘newer world’. The poem speaks of prevailing over fate and making your own path; Ulysses resists the inevitable aging and death of an old king by gathering his buddies and heading out on a final adventure. Since “Ulysses” was written shortly after the death of his close friend, Arthur Hallam, I feel that Tennyson is also writing about facing and overcoming profound loss.

In the first stanza, which is only five lines, Ulysses laments his current life as king. “Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole/Unequal laws unto a savage race,/ That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me” (3-5) These lines suggest that he feels ineffective and almost useless as a king; his laws go unheeded by the ‘savage race’ and the fact that they do not know him implies his title is unimportant to the hoarders. To me this suggests that Tennyson was trying to find his identity in the face of his friend’s untimely death; he felt helpless and lost.

In the next stanza Ulysses fondly recalls his glory days at sea traveling from battle to battle with his peers:

Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight with battle of my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met; (13-18)

Unlike the feeling in the first stanza, in this stanza Ulysses exhibits a sense of purpose; he is a well-traveled and highly respected warrior. Rather than being unknown, as he is in his kingdom, he is honour’d and a part of everything. This stanza, because it dwells so much on past times and camaraderie, makes me think that Tennyson is remembering the good times he had with his friend; the line “I am a part of all that I have met” speaks to the profound effect that his friendship with Hallam had on him.

          In the third stanza, which is also short, Ulysses bequeaths the kingdom to his son, Telemachus. He charges him with the task of subduing the ‘rugged people’ and seems to feel confident that his son is up to the task; he says, “Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere/Of common duties, decent not to fail” (39-40). These lines imply that there is a certain kind of man who is suited to fighting and another suited to the mundane life of politics, his son just happens to be better equipped to stay and tame the wild kingdom. There is more evidence of this thought in the last line of this stanza, “He works his work, I mine.” I think that this stanza reflects Tennyson’s decision to move on; he resists staying in his saddened state, but recognizes the importance of grieving. 

The last stanza is the most hopeful; he returns to the sea and the life of adventure and even though he is older and weaker than he was when he first set out, he is determined to go out in a blaze of glory.

We are not now that strength which in old days
          Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
          One equal temper of heroic hearts,
          Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
          To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (66-70)

Literally speaking, these lines deal with life and the effects of aging; Ulysses and his fellow warriors have gotten older over the years, but time cannot take away what they are at heart – men born for travel and adventure. Figuratively speaking, it is Tennyson reconciling with the loss of Arthur Hallam; the line ‘that which we are, we are’ suggests that he has accepted his friend’s death. But the following two lines seem to say that even though their bond has been made weak by fate (Hallam’s death), they are of ‘one equal temper’ and that their bond ‘will not yield’. Tennyson addresses, mourns and reconciles the deep pain he experienced with the loss of a dear friend in his dramatic monologue, “Ulysses”; it is a beautiful poem about struggle and promise.

A Brief Analysis of Gabriel Betteredge

A Brief Analysis of the Humble Gabriel Betteredge

I wish I had a Betteredge, he makes me laugh. Wilkie Collins has created a wonderfully entertaining character in Gabriel Betteredge; he is the perfect person to set the scene and introduce us to the characters in The Moonstone. I would say that he is an unreliable narrator, but not to the point that the reader cannot trust him. For example, when we first meet him he is talking about being asked to write what he remembers and he says, “I modestly declared myself to be quite unequal to the task imposed upon me – and I privately felt, all the time, that I was quite clever enough to perform it.” He lets us in on the secret and in doing so, encourages us to trust him. It also lets us see a glimpse of his character; he knows how is expected to act in this situation and acts accordingly. This gives the reader an idea of the phoniness of social propriety.

Betteredge seems to be fooling himself more than the audience in many of the places where what he says contradicts what the reader sees. One place where this happens is after he loses his temper with Sergeant Cuff; he says, “For the moment, I suppose I must have gone clean out of my senses. I seized the Sergeant by the collar of the coat and pinned him against the wall.” This is completely out of character for Betteredge. He prides himself on his level-headedness and his good manners; yet in this scene we see him act before he thinks – which is exactly what he accuses women of doing just a few pages later. When Penelope comes to him about Rosanna’s behavior, he explains why he needs to calm Penelope down in order to “improve” her state of femaleness. He says that when a woman wants him to do anything, he makes them “rummage their own minds for a reason”; he then says “it isn’t their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first, and think afterwards; it’s the fault of the fools who humour them.”  I think Collins puts these scenes so closely together so that the reader can see the blind male chauvinism that was prevalent in Victorian society. Betteredge accuses all women of being guilty of doing what he (a superior creature) just did with Sergeant Cuff.

Of course, I could be way off base with my assertion. Maybe Collins does not sympathize with the wrongly stereotyped female; perhaps this is just my twenty-first century pro-female mentality speaking. But I doubt it. I think that Collins wants us to see the way that women were oppressed, but he still wants us to like Betteredge; we are supposed to see him as a genuinely kind, appropriately proud man in Victorian England.

I like Betteredge, he makes me laugh. In particular, I like his take on marriage. He chooses to marry Selina Goby, as a decision based on “economy – with a dash of love”; of course, she also “chews her food well, and sets her foot down properly when she steps.” As amusing as this view of marriage is to me, I think it highlights the unimportance of love and romance in a society that viewed marriage as a social and economic contract rather than a bond of love. As Betteredge says, “it will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her.” Just as Lady Verinder does, I too, think that this statement is funny…sad…but funny – an appropriate contradiction coming from a man full of contradictions. Such is the Great Humble Betteredge!