Tennyson changes or adds details when he needs to for example, Tennyson's Tithonus is the one who made the request for eternal life, not his beloved, in order to further deepen the irony of unintended consequences of getting what one wished for. "Tithonus" draws on the Greek myth of the man who was doomed to grow old forever without dying. "Ulysses" concerns the Homeric hero's desire for a final journey in contrast with the less interesting life he has back at home, and "The Lotos-Eaters" describes the point in Homer's Odyssey when Ulysses must forcibly remove his men from the isle because they want to remain there forever rather than to keep adventuring. Many of Tennyson's works reuse figures from myth and legend and imagine their thoughts at crisis points or in difficult situations. How does Tennyson use legend and myth in his poetry? Ultimately the sea, as it continues to break on the crags, serves as a contrasting reminder of what he has lost ("the tender grace of a day that is dead"). Words no longer suffice for the speaker (such inability of words to mitigate grief is also seen in "In Memoriam"). He can only sit mutely and reflect on the loss of his loved one while the sea and others, such as the sailor and the boy and girl on the shore, freely laugh, sing, and shout. Mired in his grief, he admires the sea's volume and vitality, yet he has trouble expressing what the sea means to him: "I would that my tongue could utter / the thoughts that arise in me." In the third stanza he wishes for "the sound of a voice that is still." His grief has paralyzed his tongue and, it seems, his body's movement. The speaker, sitting by the shore and watching the sea break upon the crags, observes that it is loud, forceful, and indefatigable. What does the sea mean to the speaker of "Break, break, break"? He observes: "Death closes all: but something ere the end, / Some work of noble note, may yet be done." He desires one last great voyage with his mariners to accomplish "some work of noble note" before "Death closes all." He wants to reach a place that is "beyond the utmost bond of human thought" and to "seek a newer world." Is he looking for a journey at the limits of human experience in order to fulfill his identity as adventurer, fighting off weakness and death for as long as he can? Or does he seek to prepare himself for the afterlife where his soul will not be obliterated in the "eternal silence" but will instead remain to "strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" even beyond the grave? He does not know what "may" happen after death, but what he searches for is the fullest active life possible for a "heroic heart" along with other such men. He is aware that his body is growing old and and his heart is weakening due to "time and fate," but his will remains strong and steadfast. Ulysses is in a curious position: his former life at home is fading (he has a "still hearth" and an "aged wife") and boring, but he is far from ready to die ("I will drink life to the lees). What is Ulysses searching for in "Ulysses"?
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