Lord Alfred Tennyson is undisputedly the greatest among Victorian poets.

Like most great artists, Tennyson too infuses his art with the feeling of his
contemporary society and age. The Victorian spirit of compromise between
science and religion, doubt and faith, and pessimism and optimism is very well
presented in the poetry of Tennyson. The poem Ulysses (1842) is one of the
massive pillars on which Tennyson’s fame mainly rests. It embodies the Victorian
“passion for knowledge, for the exploration of its limitless field, for the
annexation of new kingdom of science and thought” as Prof. Hales remarks. In
fact, in many ways, the poem exhibits the spirit of the Victorian Era.

Ulysses, the speaker in the poem, finds the meaninglessness of life which
he passes by in his hilly kingdom in the company of his aged wife and ruling over
the ignorant people. He wishes to “drink life to the lees” as a typical Victorian
would have done. Indeed, he does not want a life of indolence and rest from all
toils and moils. Though he has seen much and known much, Ulysses is not
satisfied with what he has gained; for him as to the Victorians:

“Yet all experience is an arch where through

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move”.

The adventurous nature of Ulysses does not allow him “...to pause, to make and
end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!”. The unquenchable desire has
possessed his heart:

“To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought”.

The high spirit, energy and resolution of Victorian times are fully
celebrated in Ulysses. Like a traditional Victorian, Ulysses is fired with energy to
grasp the unattainable and the infinite. In the presence of his old mariners, he
proposes to embark on a new expedition in search of undiscovered shore and
fresh exploits:
 “To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die”.
One aspect of the Victorian outlook to life was the passionate regard for
development and palpable achievements, especially through undertaking
voyages to new lands and setting up colonies there. Ulysses is an ideal
representative Victorian poem; so far its burden of continuous advancement is
concerned.

However, despite his adventurous ideology and love for wisdom, Ulysses is
somewhat of an escapist. From the very beginning of the poem, Ulysses is seen
fed up with his prescribed royal and social duties, which is seen through his
description of his land as “barren crags” and his people as “a savage race”. This
note of escapism is quiet perceptible when Ulysses appoints his son, Telemachus,
as the ruler of the kingdom before leaving for his final voyage. Apparently, it
shows Ulysses’s sense of responsibility and care toward his subject, and we think
that he crowns his son for maintaining law and order in the state. But, sooner we
discover a subliminal escapist in Ulysses when he states: “He works his, I mine,”
This assertion may well be linked with Ulysses’s contemptuous attitude toward
his people in the opening lines of the poem. Actually, Ulysses never did think
kingly duties as his works and responsibility. His voice is a voice of an old sailor
whose glories are behind him; though he has still the appetite for life that makes
him dissatisfied with the domestic harp. It is also an old man’s appetite exceeding
potency. We miss the emotional meaning of his final journey that is undertaken
with a sense of diminished strength as the last thing possible. It is a mystical
journey undertaken by a knight with an old crew. They cry to sail beyond the
limits of old until they die; it is a journey to death.

With his insatiable hunger for knowledge, persistent progress, and spirited
personality, Ulysses turns out to be a spokesman and representative of the
Victorian epoch. But at the same time, Tennyson’s most characteristic personae,
‘a certain life-weariness’, as presented in his other works like ‘Tithonus’ where the
mortal lover of Dawn who, having been promised eternal life without eternal
youth, withers away forever and lounges to die. The same weariness and
lounging for the rest is the emotional bias of Tennyson’s finest dramatic
monologue, Ulysses; though the emotional couched in the contrasting language
of Adventure, giving added complexity of the meaning to the poem. Thus
Tennyson’s Ulysses is a superb creation of artistic excellence, expressing a
philosophy of the poet as well as the energy and resolution of his age, and
depicting some of the contradictions apparent both in his self and in his age
through the character of Ulysses.

Note: Red marked portions: Please refer to Robert Langbaum’s essay. You
have to refer to that essay if you want to write an answer on Ulysses as a poem of
escape. Have you lost the material?