However, in actually facing a tragic end such as this, Ulysses changes his mind and decides that this is in fact not how he would like to end his life. ” (lines 60-61) Tennyson writes “by this still hearth… / Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole / unequal laws unto a savage race ” In other words, Ulysses sees himself old and sedentary, ruling a dishonorable people with unjust laws and will set sail and not return, for he feels this would be a satisfactory end to his life after just one journey. However, Ulysses tells his men this adventure will be different, “Tis not to late to seek a newer world” (line 57) and “for my purpose holds/ To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths /of all the western starts, until I die. Ulysses, in a search for the satisfaction he so desperately requires in his aging days, entrusts the ruling of the country to his son (lines 33-34) and sets out to the sea one more time. In the poem, Ulysses shares some of his experiences with regard to traveling and experiencing new cultures and customs, “much have I seen and known,” (line 13) and the people that he has not only met, but also been honored by “myself not least, but honored of them all,” (line 15) but yet Ulysses still remains unsatisfied with his life “Yet all experience is an arch where thro’ / gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades / for ever and ever when I make a move. Throughout the poem Ulysses, specifically expresses that though he is old, and has had many adventures, he still dreams of gaining a greater knowledge and a furthering his journey to the point that he would choose death in order to seek that greater adventure.

Tennyson stated himself, the poem expresses his own “need for going forward and braving the struggle of life” after the loss of Hallam. Ulysses symbolizes the grieving poet and proclaims his resolution to push onward in spite of the awareness that “death closes all” (line 51). In Memoriam) this poem is also an elegy for a deeply cherished friend.

Ulysses tennyson