A dramaticis a poem in which the first person
speaker addresses the reader or an imaginary interlocutor directly and tells a story or makes a
series of observations. The monologue reveals the character of the speaker, wherein lies the
drama. Tennyson's 1842 poem, "" is often regarded is the first major example of the
form and it became popular among Victorian poets, with Tennyson, Browning and Arnold all writing
dramatic monologues.
While Browning's dramatic monologues tend to be very
sensational, with unhinged speakers demonstrating their monstrous personalities and confessing
to appalling deeds, Tennyson's are quieter and more contemplative. The tone of
"Ulysses" varies from querulous to wistful, with a surge of hopeful energy at the end.
It is this, arguably, that makes the monologue dramatic, rather than meditative. Much of the
poem is given up to complaint:
How dull it is to pause,
to make an end,To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life!Ulysses
describes himself fading away. Most of the heroes with whom he fought are dead and his survival
has got him nothing except a tedious life with an aged wife on a rocky island. The drama comes
when he stirs himself to action:Death
closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet
be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
This inspiring thought leads Ulysses to a conclusion at which he
hinted early in the poem:I cannot rest
from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees...
At the end, however, it is still dramatic when he vows to follow
up this principle with decisive action
Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding
furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the
bathsOf all the western stars, until I die.
The end of the poem, therefore, is the beginning of another
adventure.
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