Ulysses Departing

Essay Questions

1. *How does Tennyson construct the voice of Ulysses in Ulysses Departing so that the speaker appears simultaneously heroic and self-deluding? Consider how the poem's tone of restless defiance and underlying melancholy shape the reader's sympathy for or scepticism of Ulysses's arguments for setting sail. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: Identity)*

1. *To what extent does Ulysses Departing present the pursuit of knowledge and experience as an unconditional good? Explore how Tennyson uses the symbols of the arch of experience, the sinking star, and the western stars to develop a philosophy of ambition that is inseparable from the acceptance of mortality. (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3; IB guiding concept: Education and Knowledge)*

1. *How does Tennyson use contrasting symbols — the quiet hearth and the open sea — to dramatise the tension between domestic duty and personal freedom in Ulysses Departing? In your response, consider how these symbols position the reader to view stagnation as a form of death and restless movement as the only authentic life. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: Freedom)*

1. *"Tennyson's Ulysses does not celebrate life so much as flee from it." To what extent do you agree with this view of Ulysses Departing? Your answer should examine the poem's treatment of mortality, the significance of the Happy Isles as a destination, and the ambivalence embedded in Ulysses's farewell to Telemachus. (AQA AO1/AO3; IB guiding concept: Mortality)*

1. *How does the biographical context of Ulysses Departing — written in the immediate aftermath of Arthur Henry Hallam's death — enrich our understanding of the poem's insistence on "going forward"? Evaluate how far the poem can be read as a private elegy refashioned into a public argument for perseverance, and what this dual function reveals about Tennyson's poetic method. (AQA AO1/AO3; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis)*

1. *Compare the treatment of ambition and honour in Ulysses Departing with one other poem in which a speaker confronts the approach of death or the limits of human achievement. In your comparison, consider how each poet uses voice, imagery, and structure to present striving as either a dignified or a reckless response to human limitation. (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3; AP Lit Q2 comparative; IB guiding concept: Ambition/Honour)*

1. *To what extent does the figure of Telemachus function as a foil that deepens the characterisation of Ulysses in Ulysses Departing? Analyse how Tennyson uses the contrast between the two figures — the patient, duty-bound son and the restless, experience-hungry father — to interrogate different models of a meaningful life. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: Identity/Sacrifice)*

1. *How does Tennyson's choice of dramatic monologue as a form shape the reader's experience of time and journey in Ulysses Departing? Consider how the poem's long, flowing syntax mirrors the sea and the sense of an unfinishable voyage, and how this formal quality reinforces the poem's central argument that worth lies in the striving rather than the arrival. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: Journey/Time)*