The Character of Ulysses in Tennyson's Poem

Character of Ulysses:-
Ulysses is the Greek hero of the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer. He has a chequered career. He has ‘enjoyed’ and ‘suffered’ greatly alone and in the company of his beloved crew. He has faced ‘the thunder and the sunshine’ with an unfailing spirit. He has ‘seen and known’ much and received no ignoble honour from different countries. As a great warrior, he ‘drunk delight of battle’ with his peers ‘far on the ringing plains of windy Troy’, He fought there even with gods, with a dauntless breast. He has gathered, in short, a great variety of experiences both on lands and on the wide sea.
Now Ulysses rules the hilly country of Ithaca. But the work of an idle king does not at all suit him. A desire to see and learn more new things almost maddens him. He cannot rest from travel. His wants to ‘drink life to the lees’. Just as a glass of drink can be enjoyed to the last dregs, so, too, Ulysses proposes to utilise the blessing of his life to the last point. His motto of life was “to follow knowledge, like a sinking star”.
Tennyson’s poem presents Ulysses after his return to and settlement in his kingdom at Ithaca. Tennyson’s Ulysses, however, differs from the hero of Homer’s epic, the Odyssey. He is not a mere chivalrous knight and powerful leader, like his Homeric counterpart. He is above all, an idealist, who moves with an insatiable thirst for the unattainable ideal of life. His utterance illustrates and emphasizes his great mission of life and his robust dynamic vision.
Tennyson’s Ulysses does not like to pass his days in his island home at Ithaca in the company of his ‘aged wife’ and ‘rugged people’. Disgusted with the unbroken monotony of his work-a-day life as an idle king, he feels an inward urge that makes him restless. There runs through him a deep yearning for new experiences and knowledge so as to make the best use of the rest of his life. He calls his mariners and exhorts them to begin a new voyage of discovery. They must sail to the...