The Study on Mythological Allusion in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses

Abstract

Ulysses is a poem written by Alfred Lord Tennyson. This poem tells about the determination of life of the main figure, Ulysses, the king of Ithaca and the hero of the Trojan war. This poem also emphasizes to the life of the author, Alfred Lord Tennyson during his hard time. This poem represents both Ulysses and Tennyson as a man full of determination, who believe that this still life must be fought out to the end for every man has his right to gain what is best in his life. There are two problems to discuss in this thesis. The first is did the story of Ulysses in Greek mythology has influence to the poem of Tennyson‘s Ulysses? The second one is why does Tennyson writes Ulysses? Furthermore, this thesis uses archetypal approach and historical-biographical approach. The archetypal approach is uses to discover the existence of underlying mythological patterns found in the poem since this poem tells about Ulysses, one of greek‘s mythological figure. The historical-biographical approach is uses to to study the life of Tennyson to support the analysis since this poem also concerns the poet‘s own personal journey, for it was composed in the first few weeks after Tennyson learned of the death of his dear college friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. The analysis is done by using Brogan‘s theory; the theory of interpretation. There are five classifications of interpretation. Those are intrinsic, intentional, referential, structural and semiotic, and reader-response interpretation. This thesis uses Referential interpretation. It is also called mimetic interpretation. It discovers the meaning of the poem with the assumption that its story is the imitation, the embodiment and the representation of the world‘s reality and human life. This interpretation is recovered from the fact of history, biography, and social condition, also the myth as the part of its culture. This interpretation views the particular question on how far a literary work represents the real circumstance of the object. Therefore, it demands the readers to understand not only the word and language of a literary work but also the real condition of the object that happens in the past. The results of the analysis show that Tennyson uses mythological elements as the model and the reference in his poem, Ulysses. Specifically, these mythological elements appear as the structure of the poem. By knowing the structure of the poem, the hidden meaning of each expression in the poem can be revealed since the plot of the poem reflects the plot of the myth‘s story. The analysis also shows the facts of the life of the poet that have effects on the story of the poem. Tennyson writes Ulysses soon after the shock of Hallam‘s death. This life experience stimulates him in writing Ulysses. By returning and drawing the figure of Ulysses in Greek mythology, he can send the significant meaning of contra-productive problem between himself and Ulysses. Through his poem, Ulysses, Tennyson shows that the poem, which was written under the sense of loss and that all had gone by, gives its readers a feeling about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life. That this still life must be fought out to the end.