- Quoted from the poem Ulysses (1833) by Lord Alfred Tennyson.
- It is an oft-quoted poem.
- This poem is written as a dramatic monologue.
- Ulysses is a character who also appears in Homer’s Greek epic The Odyssey and Dante’s Italian epic the Inferno.
- Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus.
- Ulysses is the king of Ithaca. After a great journey, which includes wars, he has come to his own city.
- Ulysses finds himself as idle and restless at home after years of adventure.
- Ulysses here decides that he cannot rest and wants to travel beyond.
- He addresses his mariners and prepares them for the journey, ‘beyond the sunset’, to seek and find and not to yield.
- Although Ulysses and his mariners are not as strong as they were in youth, they are “strong in will”, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
- Time and fate has taken their strength and vigor. But, still they are strong in their will even though they are not as strong as earlier physically. He affirms that they are to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.
- The poem’s final line, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” came to serve as a motto for the poet’s Victorian contemporaries.
- Quoted from the poem “To the States” written by Walt Whitman.
- The 1871 edition of Leaves of Grasscontained nine poems classified as
- This is one of the significant poems in
- Walt Whitman is a major poet in the history of American literature. He is truly a representative of his age.
- Whitman combines romanticism and realism to achieve a true representation of the spirit of America.
- The concept of democracy is one of the significant themes of Leaves of Grass.
- The Inscriptionsare dedicatory poems and form a preface to the main body of Leaves of Grass.
- Whitman feels that one of the important features of a free, democratic society is its diversity of opinions.
- Here the poet calls upon the cities and the states to “resist much, obey little.”
- In his opinion unquestioning obedience will lead to slavery, and if a nation remain enslaved, it may never regain its freedom.
