For my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of the grandest poems ever written. It came out in his third publication Poems, which was released in two volumes on May 14, 1842. One of the most popular lines from the poem included 'To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield'. Tennyson sometimes derived his heroes from myths; like Ulysses itself.
Of the two volumes in Poems, the first consisted entirely of already published and revised works. The second comprised almost entirely of new poems.
Alfred Lord Tennyson was described as "the saddest poet" by T. S Eliot, commemorating the grief, the sadness and the melancholy in his poems. ("Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all", from In Memoriam A. H. H.)
The ninth most frequently quoted poet in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, the poet who held the longest tenure of Poet Laureate and one of the most celebrated poets of all time, Alfred Lord Tennyson, born into a middle-class family, published two volumes of poetry that people were to carry in their hearts even almost-two centuries later. Highly criticised for being "over-sentimental" during his time, Tennyson took the reproaches seriously and frequently edited his own manuscripts. A revised version of The Lady of Shalott appears in the first volume of Poems. He was a craftsman who obsessively polished his own works, to the point where his efforts were described as being "insane" by Robert Browning, a contemporary poet and playwright.
The strong influence of the Romantic poets before his time, such as John Keats (who preceded him in the position of Nobel Laureate) is evident from his descriptive writing.
Rhythm was penned masterfully in his clever hands. In his poem The Brook, Tennyson not only created absolutely beautiful rhythmic poetry, but also drew an image so vivid with delicate details in the minds of the readers. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance/ Among the skimming swallows/ I make the netted sunbeam dance/Against my sandy shallows. (From The Brook.)
Throughout his life, Tennyson was engulfed by bouts of depression and often drew inspiration from the grief that life left him with. It was after the death of Hallam, his closest friend and Cambridge mate (which Tennyson had to drop after his father's death before completing his degree) that the poems In the Valley of Cauteretz and The Way of the Soul were born. The masterpiece In Memoriam A. H. H. was dedicated to Hallam.
Tennyson poured a lot of himself into his works. He was, in many ways, much like his heroes; he was quite a Ulysses himself:
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
