Old Age, Loss, and Longing in Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’

Ulysses possesses a thrilling zest for life and greatness of soul, but Tennyson’s portrait reveals another side to the hero.

“Odysseus [Ulysses] and Polyphemus,” 1896, by Arnold Böcklin. As an old man, Ulysses misses great deeds and adventures, in Tennyson's poem. Public Domain

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a deep reflection on loss, aging, and longing when he was just 24. This poem—one of his best known—is “Ulysses”; it recasts the hero of Homer’s “Odyssey” as an old man, long after the adventures of his 10-year journey home from the Trojan War. Now, he contemplates a final voyage.

This dramatic monologue gives us a glimpse of the old hero’s restless mind and yearning heart that seeks for something elusive: partly knowledge, adventure, the lost days of youth, the lost companions of the past, and the transcendent.