 Critic E. J. Chiasson argued in 1954 that Ulysses is without faith in an afterlife , and that Tennyson uses a " method of indirection " to affirm the need for religious faith by showing how Ulysses ' lack of faith leads to his neglect of kingdom and family . Chiasson regards the poem as " intractable " in Tennyson 's canon , but finds that the poem 's meaning resolves itself when this indirection is understood : it illustrates Tennyson 's conviction that " disregarding religious sanctions and ' submitting all things to desire ' leads to either a sybaritic or a brutal repudiation of responsibility and ' life ' . " 
