Tennyson's Ulysses: Odysseus as a Siren

Queen Victoria?s reign (1837-1901) was an era of unprecedented changes in British society. The 19nth century saw the rise of the middle classes, rapid industrialization and the development of an Empire on which ?the sun never sets?. As Kipling phrased it in his homonymous poem it was the White man?s burden to spread British order around the world.
Apart from the ?manifest destiny? and the civilizing mission of the Victorians, this era is distinctively remembered for its restrictive decorum and the confinement of women in their roles as Angels of the house.
Victorian advertising reveals the global and great expectations of Great Britain as well as woman?s caricatured role. In the following page Pears? Soap in a fit of creativity and inspiration adapts Kipling?s poem The White Man?s Burden, an obvious euphemism for Imperialism, to advertise its manifest destiny to clean ?the dark corners of the earth?.
The next advertisement depicts the ideal Victorian lady alleviating an Englishman?s frustrations by offering him a cup of cocoa, an obviously exotic product directly deriving out of his imperialist pursuits.
Victorian literature does not simply reflect these societal shifts and changes but actually participates in them. Literature, in fact, takes an active role in inventing concepts like Englishness, womanhood and manliness.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, who lived and wrote during that era, was very Victorian and willing to conform to popular taste. Neither rebellious nor critical of his country?s practices he soon became poet laureate.
A good example of how literature reflects and sometimes even supports the societal framework is how Tennyson describes the distinctively separate roles assumed by men and women in his poem The Princess.
?Man for the field and woman for the Hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey.?
(Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol.2, p.g. 1056)
Tennyson?s poem Ulysses clearly depicts and serves Victorianism as much as The Princess reflected the pedestalled domesticity of women. In this essay, I intend to show how Ulysses as a mythical archetype contributes to a burgeoning Imperial consciousness in the specific social context he is used. I will commend on the power of myth in political propaganda citing a few historical examples and I will, then, move on to analyze the poem so as to show in what ways it reflects and approves of Victorian practices. In the end, I attempt to show the irony presented here by the choice of Odysseus, as well as the ramifications of choosing a positive mythic role model.
Tennyson chose Odysseus in his poem Ulysses. Odysseus is the undoubted archetype of the adventurer, the wanderer, the man who could go against all odds and still make it. By using a mythical archetype as strong as Odysseus he is reinforcing the Victorian ideal of traveling around the globe and, by extension, ?civilizing? primitive peoples along their way.
Myths have an enduring and powerful influence on human soul. Jung explains that ?Myths can be considered as narrative elaborations of archetypal images? (Walker, p.g. 18). These archetypal images manifesting themselves in myths are the same primordial images ?issuing from a collective unconscious, collective because it is detached from anything personal and is common to all men.? (Wright, p.g. 70).
So, taking in mind Jungian analysis of myth we conclude that ?myth is the primordial language natural to these psychic processes, and no intellectual formulation comes anywhere near the richness and expressiveness of mythological images. Such processes are concerned with the primordial images [Urbilder=archetypes], and these are best and most succinctly reproduced by figurative language? (Walker, p.g. 17).
Myths and fairy tales have been widely used in political propaganda. The social Democrats, the Communist and the Nazis all used myths and fairy tales extensively. The Nazis used Norse mythology to support their ideology claiming that it was too ?Aryan?. They connected The Second World War with the Final Battle (in Norse Myth the Ragnarok) after which the world would be an ideal Aryan place to live.
Even the Swastika, the representative sign of the Third Reich, is a decorative symbol used by many cultures in different ages. Indians, Chinese and Ancient Greeks are some of the peoples who used the Swastika. In Sanskrit ? swastika? comes from ? su? meaning ?good?, ?asti? meaning ? to be? and ?ka? as a suffix. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). So, the Nazis used an ancient, universal symbol of well being in their effort to spread their propaganda that an Aryan society was a synonym for a healthy and economically thriving society.
The Phoenix was an emblem of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. It was supposed to represent the formerly shattered and fragmented Greece now resurrecting from its ashes like the mythical bird Phoenix, thanks to the practices and ways of the Greek Generals.
This literally echoes the political manipulations of Grimm?s? Sleeping Beauty by the Nazis. They used the story of the dashing man battling his way to re-awaken a gorgeous, sleeping princess and set all wrongs aright, to support nationalistic claims. The leader becomes the Prince and the sleeping nation is the beautiful Princess. Classic tales like this, were used by Nazis to reinforce the patriarchal order in German upbringing.
The universal popularity of tales like that means that any movement having a powerful leading figure and claiming to want a re-awakening or resurrection of national values, could be easily accepted and welcome by the masses.
Tennyson?s poetry, likewise serves as a tool of imperialistic propaganda in the Victorian era. As poet Laureate he, needless to say, had to please his Queen, approve of governmental politics, let alone propagate them to his compatriots.
Even by looking at the poem itself (New Critical analysis) and focusing on its structure one can draw certain basic assumptions about the zeitgeist of the era it was written. Odysseus devotes twenty-seven lines to his own selfish, egocentric proclamation of his zeal for the adventurous, wandering life.
?I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy?d
Greatly, have suffer?d greatly?[ ]
And this great spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.?
(Ulysses, l. 6-27)
Then he devotes another twenty-two lines to his urging his mariners to follow him in his last ?but not least-voyage.
?There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that I have toil?d, and wrought,?[ ]
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the Great Achilles, whom we knew?
(Ulysses, l. 40-59)
Nevertheless, he only offers ten lines to his son Telemachus in which he praises him in a quite lukewarm manner and only concerning Telemachus? prudent governance of Ithaca in his own absence.
?This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave this scepter and the Isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro? soft degrees?[.]
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine?
(Ulysses, l. 28-38)
Penelope his wife, an archetype of devotion, chastity and female wisdom, is portrayed in merely two words ?aged wife? (Ulysses, l.3)
Only by glimpsing at the structure of the poem we are overwhelmed by this huge, phallic ?I? of Ulysses that is constantly present in the poem. This clearly depicts Tennyson?s construction of masculinity that defends patriarchy and, by extension, imperialism.
Tennyson?s Ulysses is, evidently, the perfect Englishman whose ?manifest destiny? at home as well as abroad, was to rule women children and whatever ?effeminate? peoples they encountered in their mission to expand Pax Britannica and advance civilization.
Tennyson, echoing the Victorian decorum about a woman?s place, mutilates Penelope?s presence in just two words, ?aged wife?, thus ?silencing? her not only for the rest of the poem, but presumably until the day that her beloved husband and King returns. At that point, she (and by ?she?, I mean both Penelope of the poem and the British Penelope of the Victorian era) will be permitted to talk, but only so as to speak words of welcome and devotion and she might even offer him ?a cup of Fry?s cocoa to cheer him up?!
So, the very British poet Laureate encourages other very British men to follow Ulysses? example, leave their wives behind to loyally wait for them while they would seek new adventures, new continents, a whole new world and bring it ?most rightfully- under British rule. In his lukewarm praise of Telemachus, Tennyson illustrates the good, but obviously less heroic, civil servants that may not have been born for greatness but who are, nevertheless, reliable enough to be entrusted with Britain?s bureaucratic affairs.
On top of that, a New Historicism dash in the interpretation of this poem, posing Odysseus in Victorian England, distorts even more the original image of Odysseus. Thus, reading the poem in the specific era it was written we come up with an Odysseus as a Carlelyan product, buttressing the dislike of suffrage for the lower classes ?his followers never get to talk and express themselves in this egotistical, dramatic monologue- and, of course, for women, since Penelope is so obviously gagged in her Victorian crinoline.
An intertextual analysis of the poem verifies the fact that the figure of Odysseus has been a continual source of inspiration and adaptation for writers such as Dante, Virgil, Joyce to name but a few. Of course, Odysseus has been the subject of an enormous moralistic controversy. The connotations brought about by the sole evocation of his name have changed widely according to the social context and moral values of each era.
The Odysseus of Homer?s Odyssey is a hero who yearns to return home to his family after the Trojan War, but he endures all kind of struggle in the process. The characteristics he embodied had mainly positive connotations. Homer?s Odysseus was an admirable man. He was a strategist whose guile and oratory skills were the indispensable heroic traits of Homeric times.
However in Dante?s eyes Odysseus erred. In Dante?s Inferno (which depicts various levels of Hell), Ulysses has been condemned to the ring of frauds, very close to Lucifer himself, and all this for his deception during the Trojan War, which is the exact stratagem for which Odysseus was so much admired in Homer?s Iliad. Dante, except from the fact that he came from the Trojan side of the war, considered anagogical writings the ?proper? kind of artistic representation of the world; for his Medieval Christian universe a deceitful person was nothing but a sinner and therefore a villain. For Dante, Odysseus used wit to satisfy worldly emotions like wrath, vengeance, pride. Dante?s sense of honor is Christian, whereas Odysseus? quest for honor is an unquestioning pursuit of worldly honor.
Tennyson?s Ulysses, a dramatic monologue of an old Odysseus who wants to set of for his last voyage, is basically inspired from myths about the last voyage of Odysseus and Dante. Of course, while for Dante Odysseus is a common fraud, for Tennyson he is a heroic role model again. Tennyson?s manipulation of the figure of Odysseus simply epitomizes the spirit of Victorianism that, as already commended on, was one of patriarchal domination and imperialist pursuits. In Tennyson?s Ulysses, Odysseus is a figure mainly heroic in his ability to continue in the pursuit of knowledge and adventures regardless of the misfortunes that are bestowed upon him. However, when translating ?knowledge? and ?adventures? in Victorian discourse, we end up with a poem that functions in the same way as the advertisements in the beginning of the essay; only that the specific poem tries to ?sell? imperialism as a natural, heroic practice. In fact, so heroic that it can only be illustrated via the image of the very archetype of heroism and wit: Odysseus.
A Deconstructive reading of the poem presents us with a hidden irony throughout the poem; since Odysseus for Tennyson stands for the patriarchal Great Britain, then surely Britain too is to be punished for its arrogant over-expansion as Odysseus was subject to Gods? nemesis for his own arrogance. If we read ?Happy Isles? in a Derridean way we ?play? with its double meaning:
?It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew?
(Ulysses, l.58-59)
In the myth of Odysseus? last voyage, all he finds is Achilles miserable and wishing to be a living slave than King among the dead. This might be alluding to Great Britain?s destiny to fall and to the country?s wish to ?live? again even deprived of its former glory. Robin Gilmour commends on Great Britain?s ?tragic destiny?, in his book The Victorian Period:
?The problem with the Roman analogy is that it cuts both ways, empires fall as surely as they rise, and a nation embarked on an imperial cause is locked in to that inevitable rhythm. Manifest destiny is also tragic destiny? (Gilmour, p.g 184)
Tennyson, of course, never intended to give the poem such a prolific, ironical punch line. Nevertheless, as Roland Barthes affirms the death of the author is an indisputable fact, thus the original, propagandizing voice of Tennyson is dead too. The only thing we listen to, is Odysseus? siren-like voice luring Victorian men to the Heart of Darkness to find death; the death of their aspirations, dreams, noble causes and ultimately the death of their Empire. It?s the archetype that talks to us but it reveals more than the poet planned too.