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Ecocriticism In Tennyson's Ulysses

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Eco-critics talk of the relationship between the text and the ecological value they show. In Tennyson’s Ulysses it exhibits the value of having a connection to nature and how it benefits the individual but also how ignoring the connection could jeopardize your view of nature and as a consequence, life. Since ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment, I’ll be looking at Tennyson’s anthropocentric poem Ulysses. In the poem it follows Ulysses a famous character from Roman and Greek mythology as he is about to embark on a voyage to seek the “untraveled world” and how his connection to nature inspires him. Ulysses looks to nature to provide answers to his issues, one being his mortality. In the eleventh book of The Odyssey, the prophet Tiresias predicts that Ulysses will go back …show more content…

The idea that he uses what the sea can provide for him rather than an actual love of the sea itself, and his ambivalent attitude, could be applied to more than one aspect of nature. He never fully appreciates the stars, never describes them in an admiring way but does hope to be part of their world. This is perhaps a fault with his connection to nature, he, and the start of how humans use nature to their advantage without giving back. Tennyson uses "Thunder and sunshine" as an example of juxtaposing pathetic fallacy: one showing the wrath of nature the other showing beauty. This shows the unpredictability of nature, but also as having freedom in the unknown ways of nature and not knowing what 's about to

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