Tennyson's Ulysses is quite Homer's hero, who is wise, variant and compassionate and is perfectly content to spend the rest of his life with his devoted wife and son and for whom the first duty is to govern his country. Tennyson to some extent is indebted to Dante for his portrait of Ulysses. Dante, however, does not approve of his hero's neglect of social and family responsibilities and in fact, condemns him for his perpetual longing for new experiences at the expense of social realities.
Tennyson's hero is neither Homer's Odysseus with his quite magnificence nor even Dante's Ulysses, who is condemned for his selfish escapism. Tennyson through his character reflects the complex tendencies of his age and his own temperament. In one way, the poet expresses his admiration for the active life and the courage and strong determination of his hero. He is fascinated by the defiant strength and stoic assertion of life displayed by Ulysses. The voyage may be symbolic of Tennyson's reusing himself from impotent melancholy. To the poet, Ulysses represents the romantic figure of a man for whom the purpose and joy of life lie in variety and fullness of experience. He has the unquenchable thirst for new knowledge and experience. He has always been a man of action and has 'drunk the delight of battle with his peers'. He is a part of all that he has experienced and still feels that 'all experience is an arch where through / Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever' when he moves. He cannot be tied down to the narrow confines of his little island kingdom Ithaca. The sea for him has an irresistible fascination and he urges his mariners to set out for the last, desperate voyage towards the 'utmost bound of human thought'. Though time and fate have diminished their physical prowess, they still have the heroic spirit and strong will 'to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield'. Thus, in one way Ulysses is expressive of a character endowed with a restless spirit – an eternal seeker of knowledge. This is in a way reflective of the Victorian age with its scientific spirit and colonial expansion.
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But there is the other side of the picture too. The first five lines of the poem give us some insight into the character of Ulysses by telling us what he hates. His scorn for his people and his contempt for his wife are revealed both in words and, more importantly, in the very tone. He calls his country "barren crags" and his wife 'aged' and his people 'a savage race'. The line 'That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me' consists of hard monosyllables and reveals his utter disgust with the animal-like existence of his people. Curiously enough, he pretends to admire his son Telemachus for possessing the very qualities which he himself despises. Though he had contempt for his country people and his wife he admires Telemachus for his 'slow prudence to make mild a rugged people'. He boasts of striving with gods and yet talks of Telemachus paying 'meet adoration to gods.' It appears that he does not believe in immortality (which, incidentally is the central doctrine of IN MEMORIAM) as he talks of 'the eternal silence' and that 'death closes all'. He is not certain whether they will all be drowned in the high seas or they will be able to reach Elysium and meet Achilles. At any rate, he appears to be proud and boastful and neglects his duty and social responsibilities. Some critics have gone to the extent of saying that the poem is a repudiation of life and responsibilities. For them "it is a brilliant failure in which the details are inconsistent, the reasoning specious" and it deals with life without faith, which can only lead to personal and social disintegration. The last lines, no doubt, are exalted; but the rhetoric in "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield' should be viewed in the light of all that preceded them. We find them devoid of purpose or significance.
Tennyson's Ulysses is a bundle of contradictions. Scornful of his people, and contemptuous of his own son and wife, skeptical of gods and immortality, Ulysses talks rhetorically of the life of infinite search and yearning for new knowledge and experience. The poet thus depicts some of the contradictions apparent both in himself and in his age through his character.
