Tennysons Ulysses and The Lotos Eaters Essay - 1928 Words

Tennysons Ulysses and The Lotos Eaters The great hero Odysseus has captivated readers throughout the ages. It is no surprise that the Victorian poet Tennyson not only read the Odyssey but wrote poetry about Odysseus as well. In the poems The Lotos Eaters and Ulysses, Tennyson remains true to the legends, but he infuses the characters with the ethos of his own day and his own experiences. The Lotos Eaters recalls the Homeric legend that has Odysseus and his men passing through an island that grew magical fruit. Anyone who ate of the fruit would ?forget the way home? (Bk 1X, line 97). Odysseus sent three men to scout the land. They tasted the fruit and had to be dragged back to the ship protesting and crying, by†¦show more content†¦The experience of life can be summed up as ?a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong; / Like a tale of little meaning tho? the words are strong?. Tennyson?s narrator describes that with no redemption in sight from the endless toil of life and the far-reaching hands of the merciless gods, the sailors sought relief in the oblivion of the fruit. Not only did the rest of the world recede - ?if his fellow spake, / his voice was thin, as voices from the grave? - but it allowed the fruit eater to be under the ?influence of mild-eyed melancholy? and ?to muse and brood and live again in memory?. The fruit does not liberate but mere ly suspends them in time. Besides the protest against the emptiness of existence, the sailors complain that the gods are ?careless of mankind?. To eat lotos fruit all day is a reversal of roles. Now the sailors can ?lie beside their nectar? and gaze upon the people who ?sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil?. The prayer for death is a prayer for release from this fruitless labor. ?Death is the end of life; ah why/ should life all labour be? / ?what is it that will last If nothing of lasting value is gained through our toiling, and nothing is taken to Death?s other kingdom, then why labor during our short lives? Life is the short opportunity we are given to taste joy and calm, for ?there is no joy like calm?. Why can we not have a taste of that? A further dampeningShow MoreRelatedTennyson as a Victorian Poet2765 Words   |  12 Pageslike mirror, reflects the social, political moral, and religious trends of the time. Tennyson’s poetry reflects the general feelings of his age on the great things of the world- religion, morals and social life. â€Å"Ulysses†, for instance, represents the spirit of inquiry, intellectual ferment, quest for knowledge, and urgency of going ahead, carrying on, and the life full of earnestness. Now, Tennyson’s Ulysses is Homer’s Odysseus felt through Dante. But the vibration of this poem of Tennyson is notRead MoreEssay on The Representative Poem1294 Words   |  6 Pagesfelt at the time. This poem reveals the determined spirit of everyone that lived in his culture. In the poem Tennyson says that Ulysses has been fighting and journeying for at least twenty years of his life on Earth. Along the way he has observed and learned a lot of things, but he is still not happy with his life. His desire for information is ravenous. In the poem Ulysses Tennyson says, â€Å"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,/ To rust unfurnished, not to shine in us e!† The Victorian spirit thatRead MoreThe Lotus Eater2754 Words   |  12 PagesMythic Structure in Somerset Maugham’s â€Å"The Lotus Eater† The word ‘myth’ is derived from the Greek word ‘mythos’, which means a traditional tale common to the member of a tribe, race or nation. It usually involves the supernatural elements to explain some natural phenomenon in boldly imaginative terms. Today myth has become one of the most prominent terms in contemporary literature analysis. It was Northrop Frye, one of the most influential myth critics (others including Robert Graves, FrancisRead MoreChanging Characteristics of Poetry from Modern to Romantics3272 Words   |  14 Pageshypocrisy and the spirit of compromise in his treatment of love, sex and marriage. He was a moralist and mouth piece of the Victorians. The legendary Ulysses gives message of action to readers: Strike, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Victorian’s anxieties of life and depression due to evolutionary science are presented in Tennyson’s poetry. He gives a compromise between science and religion. In Memoriam he says: Let knowledge grow from more to more And