Tennyson's Ulysses

Q1.Ulysses has been called a dramatic monologue. Do you agree with the view?

ANS: Ulysses can be called a dramatic monologue because the poet, first of all, does not speak in his own person, but through a character as in a drama, and secondly because only one character presents his speech, which gives us the impression of his character and opinions. Again we perceive the presence of imaginary listeners, the old mariners, who are supposed to listen to Ulysses.

Q2: Whom did Tennyson model his Ulysses on in the poem Ulysses?

Q3. “It profits little… by this still hearth…crags”. What is the meaning of the word ‘hearth’ here?

OR, Explain the significance of the expression “still hearth” here.

ANS: Literally ‘hearth’ means the floor at the bottom of a fireplace. But Ulysses uses the word in its literary sense, in which it means domestic life. He says so because as a man of adventure and heroic actions he is not accustomed to leading a calm and quiet family life, nor does he like to be confined to a barren and sterile place like Ithaca, which fails to satisfy his wild imagination.

Q4. “It profits little…know not me.” How does present his life in Ithaca?

OR, What picture of the land do you get from the speech?

OR, Why is Ulysses dissatisfied with his present life in Ithaca?

ANS: Ulysses who came back to his kingdom from the Trojan War after twenty years of adventure on the seas, is now naturally dissatisfied with his present life. He finds his kingdom sterile, unproductive and unromantic. He finds that his wife has now become an old woman. Again as a king he is forced to rule the people of Ithaca with unfair and imperfect laws, as they are uncivilised and lead their life by just accumulating money and things, by sleeping. They do not show any desire either to know or follow Ulysses’ heroic ideals.

Q5."I cannot rest…to the lees.” Explain the comparison implicit here.

OR, What impression of the speaker’s character do you get from the lines?

ANS: Ulysses who came back to his kingdom from the Trojan War after twenty years of adventure on the seas, is now naturally dissatisfied with his present life. He detests being confined to a single place. He wants to set sail again because he wants to explore the unknown. Again as a drunkard drinks his bottle of wine to the last drop, Ulysses intends to enjoy life to his last breath, that is, until death.

Q6.”…when/ Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades/ Vext the dim sea…” Explain the significance of the lines here.

ANS: Ulysses who came back to his kingdom from the Trojan War after twenty years of adventure on the seas, is now naturally dissatisfied with his present life. He recounts how he both enjoyed himself and suffered greatly in his adventure on the lands and on the seas as well. Even when there was the constellation of stars, the Hyades that forecast heavy rain and storm and when the sea was actually disturbed by the winds and the waves of clouds in the sky, he faced the situation and won over it.

Q7. “I am become a name”. Who says this and why?

Q8. “Myself not the least, but honoured of them all.” Who is referred to here as “honoured of them all”? Why does he say so?

Q9. Explain the expression “the ringing plains of windy Troy”.

ANS: in Homer’s Iliad Ulysses’ glory as a heroic figure culminates in his contribution to the Trojan War. Here he recounts his past experience. Troy was besieged by the attacking Greek king. So the planes outside were to be always resounded with the sound of battles. Again the movements of the battles created the impression that it was always being swept over by some winds.

Q10. “Yet all experience…when move.” Who is the speaker here? Explain how he compares experience to an arch.

ANS: Ulysses who came back to his kingdom from the Trojan War after twenty years of adventure on the seas, is now naturally dissatisfied with his present life. He wants to set sail again because he wants to explore the unknown. From his experience he has seen that just as the arch of the sky or the horizon recedes in the distance once it is reached at, thereby creating another arch to be explored, every new human experience leads one to another, creating a never-ending series of experience.

Q11. “How dull it is…to shine in use…!” Explain the metaphor implied in the lines.

Q12. “…Life piled on life…bringer of new things…” what attitude of the speaker to life is reflected in these lines?

Ans: Ulysses-- back to his kingdom from the Trojan War after twenty years of adventure on the seas-- is now naturally dissatisfied with his present life. As he reflects on his past life, he finds that, if here were given many lives instead of the present one, it would have still fallen short of activities and achievements. He knows that every moment of life, saved from death, is precious since, utilised properly, it can bring fresh new things like knowledge and experience. This is the attitude of a mythical hero who wants to set sail again even in his old age.

Q13. “Vile it were…hoard myself.” What does the speaker mean by three suns here? Why does he detest his present life?

Q14. “ This gray spirit…sinking star…human thought.” Why does Ulysses evoke the image of a ‘sinking star”? What does he mean by the “ utmost bound of human thought?”

ANS: During the ancient times the sailors would depend upon the stars for determining right direction. But Ulysses plans to go further: he wants to explore knowledge and gather experience by crossing the human limit; that is, he is willing to venture into the world unknown by crossing the limit of this world.

Q15. “This is my son…I mine.”

How does Ulysses present his son, Telemachus

OR, “He works his work, I mine.” Explain.

ANS: Ulysses presents Telemachus as a sharp contrast and as a foil to himself. As an embodiment of domesticity and responsible kingship, Telemachus is fit to rule Ithaca. Ulysses is confident that his son will be able to transform the rugged, wild and uncivilised people into a civilised nation by passing gradually appropriate laws, and to canalise their energy and spirit towards doing useful and good activities. Not only does Telemachus have the decorum, but he has also the propriety to take care of the deities of their family and worship them properly.

Q16. “There lies the port…dark broad seas.” Explain the dramatic context of the lines.

Q17. “Souls that have toiled…..free hearts and free foreheads.” Who are referred to here as ‘soul’? How does Ulysses glorify their past?

Q18. “Old age hath…be done.” Explain.

OR. “Death closes all…be done.” EXPLAIN.

Q19. “Not unbecoming of man…gods”. Explain.

ANS: In Homer’s Odyssey Ulysses had to struggle with the sea god Poseidon, and as a result he had to wander on the seas for a long time. Again in Iliad different gods took sides with the warring parties out of their whims. Ulysses along with his faithful companions fought with them and came out victorious at the end, though they had to suffer miserably for this. This line is actually a reference to those incidents.

Q20. “The lights…many voices.” What is the context of the description? Do you find any symbolic significance of the description?

ANS: As Ulysses decides to set sail again, he exhorts his old mariners to start preparing for the journey. He is in a hurry because he knows like the day his life is also going to close. In the lights twinkling from the coast, he finds a clear call that it is time to go. But if the images are closely examined, Ulysses journey into the unknown becomes one unto death.

Q21. Explain the expression, “…in order smite/ The sounding furrows.” Where did Tennyson borrow the expression?

ANS: In ancient times the ships were rowed by the warriors in particular order with the king sometimes acting as the helmsman. A furrow actually refers to a long narrow cut in the ground, especially one made by a plough. Here Ulysses refers to the roaring waves created by the moving ship on water. Tennyson inserted this expression reminiscent of Homeric one in Iliad in order to inject some heroic note in the monologue.

Q22. “…for my purpose…until I die.” Explain. What is the ancient belief reflected in the lines? What does Ulysses mean when he says so?

ANS: In ancient Greece people believed that the earth was flat, that and the ocean was a river surrounding the earth, and that the stars set at the western limit of the sky. Ulysses declares this because he wants to travel beyond the limit of this world. In this, however, the journey becomes one unto death.

Q23. “It may be…the Happy Isles…the great Achilles.” What does Ulysses refer to as the “Happy Isles? Do you find any personal note contained in the lines?

ANS: As Ulysses sets the indefinite aim of sailing beyond the limit of this world before his old mariners, he informs them that, they will be either devoured by the waves of the ocean or able to reach Elysium, the legendary abode of the blessed after death and meet Achilles, one of the greatest heroes of the Trojan War. Tennyson here might be thinking of his own highly talented friend, Arthur Hallam who died young.

Q24. “We are not … moved heaven and earth…” What does the speaker want to mean by the line?

ANS: Ulysses here tries to encourage his old companions to undertaking the journey towards exploring the unknown world by reminding them that in spite of not retaining the same degree of physical strength as they had in their prime of life, they still have some energy left. Not only that he reminds them that it was they who fought against the gods and came out victorious in the Trojan War and other adventures,

Q25.”We are … not to yield.”

ANS: Ulysses here tries to encourage his old faithful companions to undertaking the journey for the unknown by reminding them that in spite of not retaining the same degree of physical strength as they had in their prime of life, they still have some energy left. They have strong determination to try their hands with some heroic deeds, and it is this determination that compels them to attempt explorations and adventure and forbids them to surrender to fate.

Wilfred Owen's Strange Meeting: Analysis of the Important Lines

• “Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.”

Q: Who are referred to here as being “Too…bestirred”?

ANS: Engrossed in a strange fantasy the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting finds himself, after having made an escape through death from the battlefront, in a strange place, which is, of course, nowhere other than hell, among lifeless soldiers, the victims of the war, who, now remain huddled together silenced either by the thought of their unfortunate lives on earth or by the fact of being dead.

• “With a piteous recognition in fixed eye...Lifting as if to bless.”

Q: Who is talked of here? Explain the phrase “Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.”

ANS: In a bizarre poetic fantasy, conceived of most pathetically, the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting finds himself in hell among the victims of the war, and comes across a soldier --killed by none other than the poet himself yesterday—to rise up before him suddenly to stare at him with pitiful recognition of past acquaintance and to lift his hands in a painful labouredly gesture of blessing, an act which is, of course, possible now, as death levels all and there can be no enmity after death.

• “And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.”

ANS: In a bizarre poetic fantasy, conceived of most pathetically, the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting finds himself among the victims of the war huddled together in the underground of grave created by the explosion of the shells, and comes across a soldier --killed by none other than the poet himself yesterday—to rise up before suddenly him to stare at him with pitiful recognition of past acquaintance and with a strange smile of a lifeless being. These unusual circumstances lead him to conclude that the strange place is hell itself.

• “Strange friend… mourn.”

Q: Who is the speaker here? Explain the significance of the words.

ANS: As the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting, recognizes the enemy soldier killed by him yesterday and the place of the strange meeting in hell after death, he tells him that now there can be no grievances, as death puts an end to all kinds of enmity.

• “None…the hopelessness.”

Q: Where do you find the line? What is the context of the reply?

ANS: In a reply to the dry ironical understanding of the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting that after death there can be no grievances in hell, the enemy soldier, killed by the speaker himself yesterday, speaks of the past life on earth most pathetically. He now understands that all his years on earth came to nothing as the dreams and hopes of a young man remained unfulfilled.

• “Which lies not calm in eyes…richlier than here.”

Q: What does the poet refer to as ‘which’ here? What is his conception of that? Why does he mean by “grieves richlier than here”?

ANS: While talking of his shattered dreams on earth, the enemy soldier in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting voices to his killer, the speaker his idea of beauty that it does not reside in the beautiful calm eyes of a woman nor in the plaits of hairs of some woman. Beauty, according to him and to Owen as well, is eternal in that it produces pure joy, which is necessary for happiness on earth. Since his life on earth terminated untimely, he laments that he could not enjoy beauty or joy of life nor could he become cause of joy to others.

• Q: “For of my weeping..the pity of war distilled.” Explain.

ANS: While talking of his shattered dreams on earth, the enemy soldier in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting voices his grievances to his killer that had he been alive he could have told the unenlightened peoples of the world how he suffered at the cost of his life for some fictitious ideological causes, how war hits mankind; for, he now knows the essence of war and peace, life and death.

• Q: “Courage was mine…are not walled.” Explain.

ANS: Before going to expose his identity, the enemy soldier in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting tells his killer, the speaker that he had the courage to face the naked truths of war, and that he had the enlightenment, like Christ, that mankind makes a retreat from civilization in violence through war and reaches a place, which is unprotected like the fortresses giving in to decay and destruction. That is why he did not kill the speaker yesterday.

• “Then when much blood…for taint.”

Q: who is the speaker here? Why does he say so?

ANS: Before going to expose his identity, the enemy soldier in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting tells his killer, the speaker that, since he has known the deepest truths about war and peace, life and death, he hopes to go forward to cleanse the soiled spirits of the victims of war with the power of his secrets when the machines of death and destruction in another war of the same magnitude will spill human blood.

• “I am the enemy…you killed …in the dark.”

Q: Who is the speaker here? How did he know him?

ANS: It is only towards the end of their conversation that the enemy soldier exposes his identity to the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting that he is the enemy soldier killed by the speaker yesterday in the battlefield. The enemy soldier recognizes the speaker on his arrival in hell by his frowning; for, yesterday, while thrusting his sword into his body in the battlefield, he frowned in the same way. But the enemy soldier felt loathed to react in the same way and laid his life before him.

• “Let us sleep now…”

Q: Who says this and why?

ANS: Towards the end of their conversation the enemy soldier exposes his identity to the speaker in Wilfred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting that he is the enemy soldier killed by the speaker yesterday in the battlefield. But now after their death since they are now in hell, there can be no enmity. Therefore, they can now sleep in peace forever.

• Q: What does the title of the poem Strange Meeting signify?

ANS: Everything in Wifred Owen’s poem Strange Meeting is strange. It is a strange poetic fantasy. It deals with an encounter between the speaker and supposedly unknown or strange person, the enemy soldier killed by the speaker yesterday in the battlefield. Again the encounter takes place in the strangest place of all, hell. but above all, the stranger speaks of his strange experience and realization of war and peace, life and death. Finally, the reader undergoes a set of strange feelings while going through the poem.

Keats's Od to a Nightingale

• “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk…” Explain the occasion in which the poet experiences this kind of sensations.

ANS: As Keats listens to the song of the bird nightingale alone in the poem Ode to a Nightingale, he experiences euphoric ascent of joy to such an extreme degree that it ultimately leads to the feeling of pain at his heart. He compares his state of numbness to that being created by the administration of the legendary poison given to Socrates, Hemlock, which would set in rigor mortis in the human body.

• “Or emptied some dull …had sunk.” What is Lethe? Why does Keats invoke its image?

ANS: Lethe was the river of the lower world in the Greek mythology, which the dead had to cross in order to reach Hades or hell. Crossing this river would cause a complete loss of memory of what happened in the world. Keats invokes the image in order to convey the sense that the nightingale’s song made him oblivious of the real world.

• “Tis not through envy…happiness…” Why does the poet say so?

ANS: in the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats says that feels the pain of joy and sense of numbness not because of the jealousy of the better fate of the bird, but because being too happy in its singing.

• “That thou light-winged Dryad…in full-throated ease.” What does ‘Dryad’ mean here? Explain the situation Keats describes.

ANS: According to the Greek mythology, a Dryad was a wood nymph that inhabited a tree and kept watch over it. Just like a Dryad, the Nightingale is not visible and it is thought to be somewhere in some green grassy spot full of beach trees, the branches and leaves of which have created countless shadows. In this kind of natural setting the bird is singing the songs of summer spontaneously oblivious of the cares of the human world.

• “O for a draught…sunburnt mirth!” Explain the poet’s desires expressed in the lines.

OR, Explain the expressions “Provencal song” and “sunburnt mirth.”

ANS: in order to join the nightingale’s world of pure joy, Keats here in the poem Ode to a Nightingale fancies the help of the wine produced in Provence. The wine, stored in a cool place under the earth, would, the poet hopes, remind him of the flowers used in making it, and of the green countryside, the place of its production. He also fancies that in that he would be able to visualise the dance and the song of merry-making country people of Provence, whose skins become tanned working in the sun.

• “O for a beaker of wine…the world unseen.” What is referred to here as “the blushful Hippocrene”? why does the poet seeks the help of “a beaker full of warm South”?

ANS: In order to join the nightingale’s world of pure joy, Keats here in the poem Ode a Nightingale fancies the help a large cup of wine produced in the warm southern region. He compares the red wine full of bubbles to the fountain of the Muses, created by the hoof of the winged horse, Pegasus on Mount Helicon, the dwelling-place of the Muses, and the round-shaped bubbles to the beads of a rosary. This also reminds him of the red mouth of the drinker coloured by red wine.

• Explain the expression “purple-stained mouth.”

ANS: In order to join the nightingale’s world of pure joy, Keats here in the poem Ode to a Nightingale fancies the help of a large cup of wine produced in the warm southern region. This reminds him of the mouth of the drinker, which becomes purple, that is, the colour of blue and red mixed together, by red wine.

• “Fade far away, dissolve…among the leaves hast never known.” What does the poet mean by “among the leaves”? What, according to the poet, are the things that the nightingale has never known?

ANS: In these lines from the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats expresses his wish to be transported to the ideal of Nature, where the nightingale lives, with the help of wine, because he thinks that human world is full of exhaustion, anxieties, ennui, diseases, sorrows, sufferings, impermanence and imperfections.

• “The weariness, the fever…groan.” Where do these lines occur? What does the poet want to mean by this?

“Where palsy shakes …dies.” Where are these lines quoted from? Explain the significance of the lines.

ANS: In these lines from the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats expresses his wish to be transported to the ideal of Nature, where the nightingale lives, with the help of wine, because he thinks that in the human world everything is impermanent. Man soon in the course of time grows old and becomes afflicted with paralysis and with few grey hairs on their head creeps towards death. Again, some times young men, suffering from diseases like consumption, lose their health, become bloodless and thin as ghosts and die. (Keats might have written the line from his personal experience of the way his brother, Tom died of consumption.)

• “Where but to think is…leaden-eyed despairs…” Explain.

“Where Beauty cannot…beyond tomorrow.” Where do these lines occur? Why does the poet despair of life so much?

OR, Explain the significance of the lines in the context of the nightingale’s song? Why are the words ‘Beauty’ and ‘Love’ capitalized at the beginning of the letters?

ANS: In these lines from the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats expresses his wish to be transported to the ideal of Nature, where the nightingale lives, with the help of wine, because he thinks that in the human world everything is impermanent and subject to decay and death. For instance, physical beauty does not last long and soon loses its brightness. In the same way love is also short-lived. As soon as the thirst for somebody is over, the person seeks some body else for new love. (The words are written in capital letters at the beginning of the words because the poet personified those.)

• “Away! Away! … viewless wings of Poesy.” Explain the expression “viewless wings of Poesy.

OR, What does the poet mean when he intends to “flee/ Not charioted by Bacchus…Poesy”?

ANS: In the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats suddenly rejects the idea of joining the nightingale’s world of pure joy with the help of wine or by riding the chariot of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, which, according to the Greek mythology, was driven by leopards. He intends to join the bird with the help of his poetic imagination, which is ‘wingless’ in the sense that it is invisible. (And he finds that he is already in the world of the nightingale.)

• “…tender is the night…winding mossy ways.” Explain the natural atmosphere described by Keats.

ANS: As the poet John Keats listens to the song of the bird, he becomes conscious of the immediate environment. He finds the night calm, and he presupposes that the moon might be over the head and shining brightly surrounded by the fairy-like stars. As it is shaded by the branches and leaves of the trees, the moonlight cannot enter the place he is seated in, barring occasionally when the breeze moves the leaves of the trees, and it falls on the paths overgrown with moss.

• *Explain the expression “embalmed darkness”.

ANS: The place, where the poet is listening to the song of the nightingale is dark, because it is shaded by the thick braches and leaves of the trees. That is why, he cannot see the flowers or blossoms, but he can feel their presence from the sweet smells emitting from around him. In this way, the darkness of the place has become “embalmed” or sweet smelling.

• “The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine…on summer eves.”

“Darkling I listen…” Where do you find the expression? What does the poet mean by that?
“…for many a time…become a sod.” Explain. (Any question from these lines.)

ANS. While listening to the song of the nightingale Keats becomes intoxicated with pure joy and his agony of life gets transformed into ecstasy. At this moment he recalls that many a time he has longed for death and given to it many names in his poems. If he were to die at all, he thinks that it is the most appropriate moment for that. But even after his death when his body will be one with the earth, the bird will continue its song, which will be a funeral song for his death.

• “Thou wast not born for death…emperor and clown.” Explain the context in which the poet utters these lines.

ANS: While listening to the song of the nightingale, Keats becomes conscious not only of the sorrows and sufferings of the human world, but also of his own death. This leads him to contrast this world with that of the bird, which, that is, whose song has remained the same from the ancient down to the modern times and appealed in the same way to all, irrespective of classes, from the beggar to the emperor.

• “Perhas the self same song…sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home.” Who was Ruth? Why does the poet refer to her in the poem?

ANS: In the Old Testament Ruth has been described as a Moabite married to a Jew, whose death forced her to migrate to Bethelhem with her mother-in-law. She had to work there as a gleaner in the fields of a wealthy person, Boaz, whom she married later on. Keats imagines that the bird might have sung in the way to Ruth and soothed her soul when she was suffering from homesickness as it is singing now to him.

• “Charm’d magic casements…in fairy lands forlorn.” Explain the situation imagined by the poet. What does the poet mean by the expression “Charmed magic casements”?

Or, Explain the grammatical structure of the lines.

ANS: As an immortal bird, Keats thinks in the poem Ode to a Nightingale, the nightingale must have sung and soothed the soul of the beautiful maidens, who have been made captive by some wizard or monster in the castle just on the cliff overlooking a dangerous sea in a far-off fairy land.The word ‘Charm’d’ is a verb here and its object is ‘magic casements’, which stands for the beautiful maidens standing in front of the ‘casements’ or windows and listening to the song of the nightingale.

• “Forlorn! The word is like a bell…sole self.” Where do the lines occur? What is the context of the exclamations?

ANS: Towards the end of the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats suddenly comes to realize that the bird’s song aroused his imagination and transported to its world of pure joy and made him forget about the harsh realities of the world. Now he wakes up from his daydreaming and sadly finds himself alone in the world full of “weariness, fever and fret.”

• “Adieu! The fancy cannot cheat…deceiving elf.” Why is fancy called “deceiving elf”?

ANS: Towards the end of the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats suddenly comes to realize that it was his imagination that transported him to the nightingale’s world of pure joy. But soon its power gets over and the poet is forced to come back to the world of harsh realities. This is why he compares imagination to a fairy, who transforms the world only for a short while.

• “Was it a vision…sleep?” Explain the significance of the lines here.

ANS: Towards the end of the poem Ode to a Nightingale Keats suddenly comes to realize that the bird’s song aroused his imagination and transported to its world of pure joy and made him forget about the harsh realities of the world. Now he wakes up from his daydreaming and sadly finds himself alone in the world full of “weariness, fever and fret.” That is why he wonders whether all this is happening in his sleep or in conscious state.