Who wrote the poem Ulysses?
Ulysses (poem) is found lacking in narrative action; the hero's goal is vague, and by the poem's famous last line, it is not clear for what he is "striving", or to what he refuses to yield. According to Victorian scholar Herbert Tucker, Tennyson's characters "move" through time and space to be moved inwardly. To Ulysses, experience is "somewhere out there", <poem> </poem> Contemporary reviews of "Ulysses" were positive and found no irony in the poem. Author John Sterling—like Tennyson a member of the Cambridge Apostles—wrote in the "Quarterly Review" in 1842, "How superior is 'Ulysses'! There is in this work a delightful
Ulysses (poem) by his statements about the poem, and by the events in his life—the death of his closest friend—that prompted him to write it. In the twentieth century, some new interpretations of "Ulysses" highlighted potential ironies in the poem. They argued, for example, that Ulysses wishes to selfishly abandon his kingdom and family, and they questioned more positive assessments of Ulysses' character by demonstrating how he resembles flawed protagonists in earlier literature. As the poem begins, Ulysses has returned to his kingdom, Ithaca, having made a long journey home after fighting in the Trojan War. Confronted again by domestic life, Ulysses