Literary Analysis: "Ulysses" and "The Lady of Shalott" Essay

This transfer of the power of voice to Penelope’s perspective plays out similarly in Waddington’s diction choices as pitched against those of Tennyson. While “Ulysses” refers in detail to its hero’s “drunk delight” and “roaming with a hungry heart,” the same marvels are offered less glory or attention in the words of Waddington (Tennyson 16, 12). These events are mentioned, but in passing, not in Ulysses’ terms of conquest and action. While Ulysses takes the place of a passive character and only performs deeds in coming home and “climbing the stairs,” Penelope fills the seat of active rescuer and change-maker as she weaves his story (Waddington 25). Thus it is within Waddington’s diction choices for the actions of Penelope, not Ulysses, that her stanzas best reflect the gallant rhetoric akin to Tennyson’s work. From when “her stitches / embroidered the / painful colors / of her breath,” to her creation of Ulysses as “a medallion / emblazoned in / tapestry,” Penelope’s labors in the retelling of her husband constitute the most dynamic language in the work (Waddington 37-40, 30-32). Here, the facade of incapable “blind hands” falls away to reveal Penelope’s potency to create a new myth (Waddington 33).

The themes of loneliness, exile and escape from reality are important aspects that characterize the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. During the 1800s, these aspects differentiated him from other Victorian poets, distinguishing him as one of the most popular poets of the Victorian era. In Tennyson's poems Mariana, and The Lady of Shalott, the artists express loneliness in their isolation from the rest of the world. The following essay will compare and contrast the displays of temporary and permanent loneliness of these artists through Tennyson's use of imagery, repetition, and word painting.

In the Poem, “The lady of Shallot”, the main character, Lady of Shallot spends the entirety of her life perceiving the outside world through the reflection of her window through a mirror. As the Lady of Shallot observes the obscured reality, she weaves all that she sees in the mirror to create a quilt. However, what the lady sees in the mirror is not an accurate representation of the real world outside of her castle. Thus, by this action, the Lady of Shallot is an accurate representation of how all artists create their artwork. In other words, the layers behind reality that is not palpable to human eyes are what artists visualize and then illustrate on their canvas. To illustrate the emblem of Lady of Shallot, famous artist, Vincent van Gogh,

James Joyce’s Dubliners is a compilation of many short stories put together to convey the problems in Ireland during that time. Many of his characters are searching for some kind of escape from Dublin, and this is a reoccurring theme throughout the stories. In the story “Little Cloud,” the main character, Little Chandler, feels the need for both an escape from Dublin and also from his normal everyday life. Gabriel, the main character in Joyce’s final story of the book, “The Dead,” desires a different form of escape than Little Chandler. He desires to escape his aunts’ party, and also at times, Dublin society. Although the stories

While the past was riddled with misogyny, the present is beginning to look a lot brighter. However, it is the future that Tennyson is encouraging the reader to look towards. Even though the Lady of Shalott died, her plight was not in vain. This sends a message to the readers of today very similar to that of the people of England in the nineteenth century. By having the woman escape her castle only to be destroyed by the curse, it suggests that even if there are sacrifices, the desire for Camelot is becoming a tangible option. When Tennyson sulkily writes, “Lying robed in snowy white....As the boathead wound along the willowy hills and fields among, they heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott, (Page 967, lines 136, 141-144)” he suggests her song of freedom will not die with her. The ringing sounds of liberty and equality stay with the women fighting to break the

The Inferno by Dante Alighieri is about his journey learning from sinners and experiencing Hell. Dante travels to the bolgia for deceivers, and sees sinners encased in flames. Ulysses, was a main sinner attached to one of his former peers Diomed. Virgil must speak to the sinner because he believes that Ulysses will not speak to Dante. Ulysses diction reveals his seemingly gratifying to actually be manipulative.

Tennyson uses anaphoras in order to build suspense in the reader. He reels the reader in with them and gets them hooked on the poem. A third example of anaphora is exhibited in lines 24 and 25. “Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell,” shows the extreme duress the light brigade had to endure. No one expected to come out alive.

The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about the struggle of achieving the American dream, and how much a person is willing to do to reach it. The book’s focus is on the obsession of Gatsby, the protagonist, and his feelings for Daisy, a married woman who he was previously involved with. The novel also focuses on Gatsby’s determination to make her fall in love with him by the glitz of money and power. Fitzgerald uses the symbols of wealth, superficiality and irresponsibility to convey the idea that the American dream is unattainable.

The idea of poetry is a long romanticized work of art, that’s been analyzed and exploited over the centuries. Since it was first discovered in 40,000 B.C. it’s revolutionized the style of writing. Poetry wrecked the border and rules of literature, that has taken millenias to be developed by several dynasties and empires. From the billions of poems that have been recorded, and the thousands of themes these authors write about, choosing merely two poems to be compared is almost a disgrace to the community. Disregarding this, two poems from Richard Berengarten and Edgar Allen Poe will be analyzed. Despite their related themes, the two poems narrowly match each other besides the theme of Dreams.

"The Lady of Shallot," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, acts as a voice for people struggling with materialism of the industrial age. Tennyson became famous for reflecting the "idealism of an industrious society that was nonetheless racked by deep doubts about its materialism" (The Longman Anthology Of British Literature p. 1908). The curse of the mysterious lady of the poem could be thought of  as the curse of the people subcombing to the dreaded materialism and giving up the Victorian innocent ideals. Furthermore, the lady represents Tennyson himself as he suffered from a personal battle between the desire for glamour's fame, and the need to stay an innocent poet. In Looking at the viewpoint of Tennyson

Although Ulysses and Odysseus share similar traits, Homer would not agree with Tennyson 's portrayal of Odysseus in the poem "Ulysses". Whereas Odysseus wishes to complete his journey and find relief, Ulysses seeks to continue on a never-ending one.

In the poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’, Tennyson addresses the isolation of women which was present due to the increasing gender divisions at the time. Tennyson may be responding to the anxieties surrounding isolation since the Victorian era; rigid class systems were put in place and women were most at risk as they had to abide by traditional British values which were to remain behind closed doors and be subservient to men.

Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson are celebrated authors and poets in the field of field of literature. A deeper analysis of some of their works displays particular similarities and distinct differences that make each one of them unique. For instance, Browning’s My Last Duchess and Tennyson’s Ulysses show similarities in the overall theme, death, but each brings it out in different styles. This essay explains the comparison of the two poems in detail and the respective significance of use of stylistic devices.

In Joyce’s story Ulysses, Joyce’s hero is no Greek hero like Odysseus but rather a hero getting through life in the world of reality. The book has had its issues with being published because of its endless amount of sexual, cruel and unbearable moments, religious conflicts and language along with shallow characters. For example, the chapter called Nausicaa parallels to Odysseus looking on Nausicaa and her maids washing their clothes by the river but unlike what occurred in the Odyssey, Bloom’s approach was entirely different. Among the women he was spying on, he was more focused on a woman named Gerty MacDowell. She was deep in thought of a boyfriend Reggie Wylie who never showed up and she felt like she was unwanted. She looked on noticed a hidden Bloom masturbating, which led her to adjust her seating and move around “her wellturned ankle” (Joyce 350) to show off her legs. The scene was perverted toward women but it made her more wanted.

James Joyce and H.G. Welles had different styles of writing and relied on different forms of narration. H.G. Wells was direct and focused on the external environment or situation. He did not give much insight on the thoughts or internal struggle of his characters, while James Joyce did. Joyce supplied his characters with a greater level of internal comprehension than Wells did and was able to provide more human like characters. This difference is especially seen in H.G Well’s Tono-Bungay and James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. They do share their views on the lifestyle of religious people, but there is a difference in their style of writing their respective novels. They contrast in how they convey emotional moments, they portray violence in different lights, and their view toward youth is contradictory.