Poem review: Ulysses

Today I had my final exam for my English Literature class, and since I hadn't had as much time as I expected this week to study, I was doing some last-minute browsing of some of the things we read in the second half of the class. One of the things I reread was a poem by Tennyson called Ulysses, and it had some things in it that gave me a lot to think about. (Here is a link to a web page that has it, if you're interested in reading it.) I actually kind of enjoyed the poem, but at the same time it made me really mad at Odysseus (who is sometimes called Ulysses, like in this poem).

The context of the poem is that Ulysses has been back in Ithaca for a while and things have settled down--he is reunited with his wife and son and has brought peace to the land again. He is quite a bit older, and he decides that he's going to leave with his old buddies from the Trojan war to seek new adventures. (I think before I continue I should probably admit that I haven't actually read the Odyssey or the Iliad, despite living for a year with a classicist before RT and I got married. I have some idea of the story line, but I'm for sure missing a lot of things.)

The thing that made me really mad was that Ulysses thinks it's okay to just abandon all his responsibilities so he can appease his desire for adventure. I'm especially annoyed that he's just leaving behind his "aged wife," (l. 3) as he puts it, and his son, "mine own Telemachus." (l. 33) Penelope waited for him to return home for years and had to deal with a lot of harassment by men who wanted her to remarry. I just don't think it's right to leave your family like that just so you can go have some excitement. I kept thinking about the Proclamation to the World where it says, "Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children." If I were Penelope, I wouldn't put up with it.

He's also abandoning his responsibilities to govern his kingdom--it's not honorable enough for him. I guess his idea of honorable involves swords and battles with mythical creatures. The way he puts it is, "Some work of noble note, may yet be done, / Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods." (ll. 52-53) In other words, "I've fought with the Gods; I'm too amazing to spend the rest of my life ruling 'a savage race' (l. 4) and a 'rugged people' (l. 37)." He leaves this to Telemachus, who is "centered in the sphere of common duties." (ll. 39-40, emphasis added) It kind of seemed to me like Ulysses is looking for something to be heroic about, but nobody needs that kind of hero anymore. He tells us that Telemachus is going to be the one to tame and teach the people of Ithaca, "subdue them to the useful and the good." (l. 38) There's honor in teaching people to be good too, but Ulysses doesn't realize that. It sort of makes me see him as someone who does heroic stuff so that he'll be seen as a hero, not because it's the right thing to do or because he's accomplishing something good. (No surprise there, I guess, considering why the Trojan war was fought in the first place.)

So those are my rantings about Ulysses. He's not as cool as Wishbone made him seem.