Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" is told from the perspective of the aged hero, years after his return to Ithaca. The poem is composed of three stanzas, and the mood and tone change from one to the next.
In the first stanza, Ulysses reflects on his past...
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" is told from the perspective of the aged hero, years after his return to Ithaca. The poem is composed of three stanzas, and the mood and tone change from one to the next.
In the first stanza, Ulysses reflects on his past adventures and compares them to his current quiet life. The mood is restless and dissatisfied, as indicated in the opening verses, where Ulysses laments his "idleness" and expresses a sense of detachment from his subjects:
a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
The mood is underscored by the shift in Ulysses's tone when thinking of his younger days. From the dour opening lines, the tone becomes bright and nostalgic, as Ulysses notes proudly that
I am become a name;For always roaming with a hungry heartMuch have I seen and known . . .
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!As tho' to breathe were life!
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfilThis labour, by slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and thro' soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good . . .When I am gone.
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
Come, my friends,'T is not too late to seek a newer world.. . . my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die.
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The mood of the poem 'Ulysses'by Alfred Lord Tennyson is contemplative - he is remembering and reflecting on experiences past, and thinking about them. He contemplates 'all times he enjoy'd greatly' as well as all the travelling he has done. He sees this kind of life comtinuing for the moment ('I will drink Liffe to the lees). He also mentions that he has suffered too and that times haven't always been completely happy and this gives the poem a sombre and realistic mood. He has the balance of view that many decent people would have on looking back over their lives - some things good, some not so. The tone of the poem is educative and sharing - the poet narrator is being friendly but fairly formal in his sharing of past experiences from life and lessons he has learnt. The tone nearing the end the end is hopeful however - although 'death closes all' he is not so old that no more good can be achieved.