Saturday, September 1, 2012
Blog #2 Close Reading
The speaker Ulysses in the poem “Ulysses” is lamenting about being back home. He would much rather travel and experience new adventures than act as “an idle king” (line 1). In line 6 he explicitly states that “I cannot rest from travel.” Ulysses refers to the people he rules as a “savage race/ That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.” By using the word savage, Ulysses places himself on a pedestal above a supposedly inhumane society – at least in his mind. This shows that he does not care about his commoners. Most of the lines in the poem are enjambed which means that many of the sentences have a break in line. There are not many periods at the end of the lines but actually there are many periods in the middle of the lines. This form reflects how Ulysses’ monologue is like a running thought of ideas. He does not even care for his Penelope (“aged wife”) and indifferently passes the throne to his son (“He works his work, I mine.”). Ulysses cares more about his mariners, pleading them to “seek a newer world” even if this causes his death. He wishes to relentlessly explore: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Ultimately, Ulysses believes that he should push past his limits and continue to explore the unknown, even though this idea makes him vain since he does not really care for anyone else but himself and his mariners.
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I really liked your points on how deeply Ulysses is unsatisfied by his current circumstances. I noticed it too; the way he considers himself above others and how he's even bored with his aging wife and growing son. By first glance, it seems like Ulysses is a prideful and selfish guy who just wants to do whatever he wants, but at the same time I think that he's just so desperate to be out there because he feels so unaccomplished sitting at home. So I don't think he's necessarily vain like you said, but I definitely do get the feel that Ulysses obsesses a little too much about physical (not mental) journeys.
ReplyDeleteIt's a generally accepted rule of thumb that the longer that you spend time with someone, the closer you and that person become. Your post made me realize that we can definitely assume that Ulysses has spent a significantly longer time with his seafaring crew than his own wife and son which is why he does not feel any responsibility or obligation to spend time with them as he lives out the rest of his life. Because of our social norms, this idea does make Ulysses seem very selfish; however, under the same circumstances I think that many of us would feel wired the same way.
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