Ulyses Summary, from Lord tennyson

            
             Alfred Tennyson was a great and accomplished poet during the Victorian Age, holding Britain's prestigious position of Poet Laureate. He was a man of many great works with no lack in diversity, writing poems in the lyric, narrative and the dramatic. One of his best dramatic monologues is his poem "Ulysses". Ulysses (Roman for Odysseus of Homer's epic) tells the story of the aged War Hero turned King addressing his crew and people, before embarking on a new voyage.
             In the first stanza of the poem, Ulysses sadly reminisces of the older days, realizing that his present occupation has left him "to rust unburnish"d". He has grown bored with his respected position, and he sees everything that should be beautiful in his life, his wife, his home, and his lifestyle, with a tired plainness. Ulysses feels he lives without truly living.
             He finds no rest because he has not journeyed from anywhere to be rightfully weary, and the only things that give him any peace are the memories of his past. Ulysses remembers the joys of drunken battle with his friends on the plains of Troy. He remembers sailing the seas. He remembers all that he "enjoyed greatly," and "suffered greatly." He knows now in his old age, that little of life remains, but he intends to make every moment of it count, "I cannot rest from travel; I will drinks life to the lees". Ulysses desires to begin a new journey, a journey for the knowledge of things that he has not before seen, heard, nor dreamed. .
             The second stanza is Ulysses" last testimony to his people and to his son, Telemachus. Before Ulysses goes on his journey, he leaves the responsibility of ruling the people to his son. He asks Telemachus to patiently push his people to progress into something greater and more useful than the "rugged" people that they are. .
             The last stanza of the poem is Ulysses trying to strengthen his crew's spirit. Ulysses concedes that they all are growing old, but he says that there is still honor and work to be done in old age.