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Ulysses And Tennyson Comparison

Decent Essays

In Tennyson’s “Ulysses”, this poem is essentially an address or monologue of Ulysses and his aging. The views throughout the poem coincide with the episode in “The Odyssey”, where Calypso offers Odysseus to live like a god and is rejected by him. In “The Odyssey”, Homer portrays him as middle-aged, while in “Ulysses”, he is reflected as an old man. Tennyson reflects on Ulysses old triumphs, going back to his past and remembering what he has been through, while preparing for his encounter with the death of aging. Ulysses views are reflected in the episode of Calypso offering Odysseus immortality through, his knowledge that comes with old age, missing his longing for adventure, and instead of choosing immortality chooses to live immortal through …show more content…

In Ulysses, Tennyson describes the views he has after his homecoming and the Odyssey ends after he has been back home, and doesn’t go any further than that. Both of these stories explain Ulysses/Odysseus in various ways but with the same mindful curiosity. They both long/longed for adventure and to see other cultures and oversee other peoples lifestyles. In the Odyssey, it is all about the adventure in store and where he is going and what he is going to see on his way home, but in Ulysses it is all about the trials and adventures as a whole and how he felt about it all. Ulysses thought of returning home is unappealing to him but in the Odyssey he longs for his return and cannot wait for that day to come. Ulysses longs for the movement, the journey to keep him moving, not stopping. Here, old age has made him look at it in a different perspective; he values the journey more than that of in the odyssey. When Denying Calypso’s invitation for living like a god with complete immortality, he contradicts himself and chooses the metaphor. So in Ulysses, he reminisces on all of his work and how he will be remembered when he is long gone through his great trails and achievements, be remembered through his fame, the metaphor. He mentions that his son will take over after him and continue his fame with the family name. In Ulysses he says how that since he is getting old and nearing his death that his son who he realizes is older now will help him after he is gone. In the Odyssey, he doesn’t like just sitting back and watching his son slowly take over, which causes him to leave in the first place. When he is nearing death, the Odyssey it is predicted that he will die peacefully and quietly in Ithaca but in Ulysseys, at the end of Tennyson’s poem he is not peaceful at all and is getting weaker

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