ulysses last voyage

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Analysis of Ulysses' Last Voyage

Dante alighieri 1265 (florence) – 1321 (ravenna).

I launched her with my small remaining band and, putting out to sea, we set the main on that lone ship and said farewell to land. Far to starboard rose the coast of Spain, astern was Sardi, Islas at our bow, and soon we saw Morocco port abeam. Though I and comrades now were old and slow, we hauled till nightfall for the narrow sound where Hercules had shown what not to do, by setting marks for men to stay behind. At dawn the starboard lookout made Seville, and at the straits stood Ceuta t'other hand. 'Brothers,' I shouted, 'who have had the will to come through danger, and have reached the west! our time awake is brief from now until the senses die, and so I say we test the sun's own motion and do not forego the worlds beyond, unknown and peopleless. Think of the roots from which you sprang, and show that you are human: not unconscious brutes but made to follow virtue and to know.'

Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 07, 2023

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, simply referred to as Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages.  more…

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A Hero Without Nostos : Ulysses’ Last Voyage in Twentieth-Century Italy

• Published: 11 March 2015
• Volume 22 , pages 341–379, ( 2015 )

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• Francesca Schironi 1  

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The article reviews the reception of Ulysses’ last voyage in twentieth-century Italy. Ulysses’ last voyage is used by Italian authors to discuss different and often opposing views of the ideal human life as well as the intellectual and existential angsts of the twentieth century. In addition, the Italian twentieth-century Ulysses becomes part of a metapoetic discourse, as going back to the Homeric and Dantesque myths of Ulysses for an artist also means interrogating oneself on the possibility of creating something new within a long tradition. This metaliterary dimension adds to the modern Italian reception of Ulysses, making it a unique case of the intersection of many different layers of reception both in chronological and thematic terms.

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Hero and Villain: An Outline of the Exodus Pharaoh in Artapanus

Memnon in the Middle Ages: The Reception of a Homeric Hero

See W. B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme; a Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero , Ann Arbor 1963; P. Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses: Figures of a Myth , Oxford 1994; E. Hall, The Return of Ulysses: a Cultural History of Homer's Odyssey , Baltimore 2008.

Stanford, The Ulysses Theme (n. 1 above), 7.

For a linguistic analysis of the word νόστος (which derives from the IE root * nes -, meaning ‘saving oneself from any lethal danger’, ‘surviving’) and its literary implications, see A. Bonifazi, ‘Inquiring into Nostos and Its Cognates’, American Journal of Philology 130 (2009), 481–510. D. Frame, The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic , New Haven-London 1978, connected this root to that of νόος, ‘mind’, but his attempt to link ‘mind’ and ‘return’ encountered criticism; see R. D. Dawe, Review of The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic by Douglas Frame, The Classical Journal 75 (1980), 357–359, and F. M. Combellack, Review of The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic by Douglas Frame, Classical Philology 76 (1981), 225–228.

Unlike in Dante, however, in these authors Ulysses embarks on a second voyage after returning home. On this important difference, see also below, § 5.

The best overview of the modern Italian reception of Ulysses in English is in Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), passim. On the other hand, despite its overall good quality, Stanford, The Ulysses Theme (n. 1 above), is perhaps not comprehensive enough, as he only touches upon Dante, Pascoli, D’Annunzio, and briefly mentions Graf. Similarly, Hall, The Return of Ulysses (n. 1, above), mentions only the adaptations of Levi and Dallapiccola as well as Moravia’s Contempt (even though the latter deals with the Odyssey at a very different level; see below, § 5). On the Italian reception of Ulysses, see D. Messineo, Il viaggio di Ulisse da Dante a Levi , Firenze 1995; the essays by P. M. Capezza, A. Collisani, D. Del Corno, D. Fedele, P. Gibellini, A. Sole, M. Sacco Messineo, P. Pucci, W. Pedullà, A. Grillo and S. Nicosia in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003; L. Zampese, Ulisse: il ritorno e il viaggio: un mito universale tra passato e presente , Firenze 2003, 89–140 (all in Italian). Other references to specific works discussed in this paper will be given below.

Giovanni Pascoli, The Sleep of Odysseus ( Il sonno di Odisseo , first published in 1899 and then in 1904) and The Return ( Il ritorno, written in 1901 and published in 1906); Umberto Saba, Ulysses ( Ulisse , 1946); Cesare Pavese, The Island ( L’isola ) in Dialogues with Leuco ( Dialoghi con Leucò, 1947); Luciano Berio, Outis (1996). Even these works, however, seem to preserve a memory of the Ulysses depicted in Dante’s myth; see below, § 4. There are only a few examples of modern literary engagement with Ulysses that completely ignore the myth of the last voyage, e.g., the minor references in some twentieth-century poets surveyed by P. Gibellini, ‘L’impaziente Odisseo. Ulisse nella poesia italiana del novecento’, in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003, 489–515, at 505–512.

This characteristic has been noted also by Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 127.

From this survey I have excluded The Canto of Ulysses ( Il Canto di Ulisse ) by Primo Levi (from the novel If This Is a Man , 1947) because more than a reception of the myth of Ulysses it is a meditation on Dante’s Inferno xxvi. In his chapter on Ulysses, Levi describes his own efforts to recall to memory Inferno xxvi and explain it to a fellow prisoner at Auschwitz. Keeping alive the figure of Ulysses, the champion of ‘virtue and knowledge’, is thus the only way to keep human dignity alive in the ‘inferno’ of the Nazi concentration camp. On Levi’s The Canto of Ulysses , see Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 157–163. I will also not touch upon other texts that use Ulysses and the Odyssey in a way that bears no strong relation to the original text, such as Pavese’s The Witches ( Le streghe ) in Dialogues with Leuco ( Dialoghi con Leucò, 1947), in which Circe tells Leucotea about her encounter with Ulysses, or Moravia’s Contempt ( Il disprezzo , 1954; on this work, see below, § 5).

I am using this label even if the first work I am going to discuss in fact dates to 1897. In addition, though mostly following a diachronic order, sometimes I will depart from a strict chronological treatment, because I prefer to analyze closely connected works together (such as those by D’Annunzio and Gozzano) or favor a thematic approach (as in the third part, where I first discuss Dallapiccola’s treatment of Ulysses, which is unique, and then the ones by Savinio and Malerba, which partly share a common attitude towards Dante’s original myth).

Most of the texts I will be discussing are virtually unknown outside of Italy. As my main intended audience is non-Italian classicists interested in reception, I will provide background information about the author, as well as summaries, paraphrases and translations of those texts. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

Ulysses and Diomedes are condemned because of the Trojan horse, because they have convinced Achilles to leave Deidamia and join the Trojan expedition and because of the theft of the Palladium, as Virgil explains in Inf. xxvi 59–63. Therefore, Stanford’s interpretation of Dante’s Ulysses (Stanford, The Ulysses Theme (n. 1 above), 178–182) as condemned among the fraudulent counselors because he deceived his companions in persuading them to join him in the ‘mad flight’ is fundamentally wrong; see M. M. Rossi, ‘Dante’s Conception of Ulysses’, Italica 30 (1953), 193–202 (responding to a previous article of the same title by Stanford in Cambridge Journal 6 (1953), 239–247), and L. Pertile, ‘Dante e l’ingegno di Ulisse’, Stanford Italian Review 1 (1979), 35–65, at 41 n. 9 and 61 n. 46.

The bibliography on this famous episode is immense. Among the standard and fundamental studies on Dante’s Ulysses are M. Fubini, ‘Il peccato d’Ulisse’ and ‘Il canto XXVI dell’ Inferno ’, in id., Il peccato di Ulisse e altri scritti danteschi , Milano-Napoli 1966, 1–76; A. Pagliaro, ‘Ulisse’, in id., Ulisse. Ricerche semantiche sulla Divina Commedia , 2 vols., Messina-Firenze 1967, vol. 1, 371–432. On the intelligence of Ulysses, see Pertile, ‘Dante e l’ingegno di Ulisse’ (n. 11, above).

Cf. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme (n. 1 above), 180; Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia: Inferno ,  a cura di U. Bosco e G. Reggio, Firenze 1982 6 , 377–379.

Cf. M. Corti, ‘La «favola» di Ulisse: invenzione dantesca?’, in ead., Percorsi dell'invenzione. Il linguaggio poetico e Dante , Torino 1993, 113–145, at 113–128.

Horace also famously translated the incipit of the Odyssey in the Ars Poetica, 141–142: Dic mihi, Musa, uirum, captae post tempora Troiae / qui mores hominum multorum uidit et urbes .

On other Late Antique and Medieval sources on Ulysses’ wisdom which could have been known to Dante, see Corti, ‘La «favola» di Ulisse’ (n. 14, above), 133–140.

On this poem, see R. Rizzo, Pessimismo e spiritualismo nell'opera poetica di Arturo Graf , Catania 1921, 65–71; Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 57, 127; Messineo, Il viaggio di Ulisse (n. 5, above), 30–34; G. Nava, ‘Il mito vuoto: L’ultimo viaggio ’, Rivista pascoliana 9 (1997), 101–113, at 102–104; Gibellini, ‘L’impaziente Odisseo’ (n. 6, above), 492–494. I quote Graf’s text according to the following edition: A. Graf, Le Danaidi. Seconda edizione emendata e accresciuta di un terzo libro , Torino 1905, 25–47.

A. Graf, ‘Preraffaeliti, simbolisti ed esteti’, in id., Foscolo, Manzoni e Leopardi . Saggi di Arturo Graf , Torino 1898, 401–459, first published in Nuova antologia 67 (1897); see G. Pieri, ‘The Critical Reception of Pre-Raphaelitism in Italy, 1878–1910’, The Modern Language Review 99 (2004), 364–381, at 377. Tennyson had the Pre-Raphaelites illustrate his own poems (A. L. Tennyson, Poems , London: E. Moxon, 1857); see G. S. Layard, Tennyson and his Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators. A Book About a Book , London 1894; R. L. Stein, ‘ The Pre-Raphaelite Tennyson’, Victorian Studies 24 (1981), 278–301.

Tennyson and Graf (as well as later on Gozzano and Pascoli) deviate from Homer when they ‘resuscitate’ the companions of Ulysses. In the Odyssey Ulysses reaches Ithaca alone after all his companions have died in the 10-year journey back. In Dante they are still alive as Ulysses sails directly from Circe. Since in these later rewritings Ulysses has reached Ithaca, the companions should be already dead. Yet they are necessary to have Ulysses address them as in Dante. Indeed the Dantesque ‘orazion picciola’ (little, short speech) by Ulysses becomes an integral part of the ‘new’ Ulysses myth, even though it is inconsistent with Homer’s story.

‘D’intentate fatiche e di mortali / perigli esperti’.

On Tennyson’s Ulysses compared to that of Dante, see T. Robbins, ‘Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: the Significance of the Homeric and Dantesque Backgrounds’, Victorian Poetry 11 (1973), 177–193, and R. F. Storch, ‘The Fugitive From the Ancestral Hearth: Tennyson’s Ulysses ’, in Odysseus/Ulysses , ed. H. Bloom, New York–Philadelphia 1991, 161–175. A comparison between Tennyson and Dante is Constantine Cavafy’s essay ‘The end of Ulysses’. The essay remained unedited until 1974 when G. Savidis published it (now in G. P. Savidis, Mikra Kavafika 2, Athens 1987, 169–197); for an Italian translation of the Greek original, see R. Lavagnini, ‘La «Seconda Odissea» di Kavafis’, in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003, 417–433, at 419–426. I am not aware of any English translation of the essay.

Cf. Tennyson’s Ulysses , 6–7, 12–13, 22–23, 56–57: ‘I cannot rest from travel; I will drink / Life to the lees. […] / For always roaming with a hungry heart / Much have I seen and known; […] / How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! / […] Come, my friends, / ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world’.

‘Sorgere un fosco e dirupato monte / che tra le nubi nascondea la cima’.

The identification of Columbus with Ulysses is already in Torquato Tasso ( Gerusalemme Liberata xv 31–32) and is quite common. See Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 52–68; Hall, The Return of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 78–79.

Originally the Praises should have contained seven books, named after the seven brightest stars of the Pleiades; D’Annunzio, however, composed only five books ( Maia , Elettra , Alcyone , Merope , Asterope ). I quote D’Annunzio’s text of Maia according to the following edition: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Maia , a cura di A. Andreoli, Milano 1995.

Only in Alcyone does D’Annunzio compose real poetry when he describes natural landscapes with a very sensuous and musical use of the language, far from his Nietzschean ambitions of Maia .

‘Nel maggior corno della fiamma antica, / parlami’ ( Alle Pleiadi e ai Fati , 47–48; cf. Inf . xxvi 85) and ‘infin che il Mar fu sopra te richiuso’ ( Alle Pleiadi e ai Fati , 55, the last line of the poem; cf. Inf . xxvi 142, again the last line of the canto).

The anti-Christian motif comes back in the second prefatory poem of Maia , The Announcement ( L’annunzio ), at lines 125–130. The celebration of anti-Christian values was a point of contrast with Pascoli, who also wrote about Ulysses (see below, § 2.4) and who on various occasions affirmed the role of the poet as an educator and his faith in Christian or, better, humanitarian principles (against D’Annunzio’s egotism and his contempt for the masses). Cf. R. Bertazzoli, ‘Ulisse in D’Annunzio e Pascoli: Maia e i Poemi Conviviali ’, in Il mito nella letteratura italiana moderna, ed. P. Gibellini, Humanitas 51 (1996), 697–712, at 698–701.

On D’Annunzio’s Ulysses in Maia , see Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 130–134; Messineo, Il viaggio di Ulisse (n. 5, above), 46–51; Bertazzoli, ‘Ulisse in D’Annunzio e Pascoli’ (n. 28, above); Nava, ‘Il mito vuoto’ (n. 17, above), 104–108; Gibellini, ‘L’impaziente Odisseo’ (n. 6, above), 495–500; Zampese, Ulisse: il ritorno e il viaggio (n. 5, above), 92–100.

On this journey in Greece, see L. Fiumi, ‘Il Retroscena di Laus Vitae : D’Annunzio in Grecia’, Italica 25 (1948), 265–266; A. Rhodes, The Poet as Superman: a Life of Gabriele D’Annunzio , Worcester–London 1959, 53–64; and J. Woodhouse, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Defiant Archangel , Oxford 1998, 130–137, 199–200. On the bookish Greece of D’Annunzio, see M. Guglielminetti, ‘Le patrie ideali nel libro di Maia : la Grecia’, in D’Annunzio e il classicismo , Quaderni del Vittoriale 23 (1980), 41–55.

Maia iv 101–102: ‘Si volse egli men disdegnoso / a quel giovine orgoglio’ [He turned less disdainfully / Towards that proud young man].

The impressions that Ithaca left on D’Annunzio on the cruise were strong, as he noted in his Taccuini , III, on July 31 1895; see Andreoli, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Maia (n. 25, above), 354; Zampese, Ulisse: il ritorno e il viaggio (n. 5, above), 97.

Maia iv 38–42: ‘il ginocchio / ferreo, […] / l’occhio aguzzo; e vigile in ogni / muscolo era l’infaticata / possa del magnanimo cuore’.

Maia xv 358–366: ‘Un Ulissìde egli era / perpetuo desìo della terra / incognita l’avido cuore / gli affaticava, desìo / d’errare in sempre più grande / spazio, di compiere nuova / esperienza di genti / e di perigli e di odori / terrestri’.

Maia xv 424–427: ‘non più dunque [...] / io ti leggerò l’avventura / del Re di tempeste Odisseo’.

This according to E. Palmieri, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Laudi del cielo, del mare, della terra e degli eroi, Libro Primo, Maia, Laus Vitae , Bologna 1949, 360 (who quotes Scarfoglio’s memories). Surely D’Annunzio wanted to bring on the cruise books of Homer, Hesiod, Pausanias and other Greek authors; cf. Guglielminetti, ‘Le patrie ideali’ (n. 30, above), 46; however, Rhodes, The Poet as Superman (n. 30, above), 54, quotes Hérelle (a French university professor who joined the trip), who said that ‘they talked more than they read’.

D’Annunzio even defines Ulysses’ voyage as a ‘necessary toil’ ( Maia iv 61–62: ‘proseguiva / il suo necessario travaglio’).

The orgiastic celebration that ‘Pan is not dead’ is at the basis of The Announcement , Maia ’s second prefatory poem.

To define his low-key new poetics Gozzano famously claimed to sing ‘the good things of bad taste’ (‘le buone cose di pessimo gusto’, in L’amica di nonna Speranza , 2) in opposition to the decadent and luxurious world of D’Annunzio.

On this poem, see Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 134–139; Messineo, Il viaggio di Ulisse (n. 5, above), 51–55; Gibellini, ‘L’impaziente Odisseo’ (n. 6, above), 503–505; Zampese, Ulisse: il ritorno e il viaggio (n. 5, above), 114–119; F. Longo, ‘L’ ipotesi demitizzante di Gozzano. Ulisse tra yacht e cocottes ’, in Il mito nel testo: gli antichi e la Bibbia nella letteratura italiana , ed. K. Cappellini and L. Geri, Roma 2007, 141–156. I quote Gozzano’s text according to the following edition: G. Gozzano, ‘L’ipotesi’, in Opere di Guido Gozzano , a cura di G. Baldissone, Torino 1983, 302–311.

‘e volse coi tardi compagni / cercando fortuna in America…’.

‘Considerate, miei cari / compagni, la vostra semenza!’.

On the meaning of ‘folle volo’ in Dante, see Pagliaro, ‘Ulisse’ (n. 12, above), 426, n. 31.

Ulysses as a polemical symbol for D’Annunzio and his ‘panic’ credos comes back again in another poem by Gozzano ( Domani, iv , in Poesie sparse) .

It is well documented that on the trip to Greece D’Annunzio was more interested in women than archeological sites; see Fiumi, ‘Il Retroscena di Laus Vitae ’ (n. 30, above); Rhodes, The Poet as Superman (n. 30, above), 55–56; Woodhouse, Gabriele D’Annunzio (n. 30, above), 132–137.

Indeed Gozzano often claims that he does not want to become like D’Annunzio; most famously in one poem ( L’altro , 9–12, in Poesie sparse ) he thanks God because He made him ‘gozzano’, that is, a bit idiotic (but genuine), while He could have made him ‘gabriel dannunziano’, which would have been far worse. Interestingly, the original title of this poem was Prayer to the Good Lord Jesus So That He Not Make Me ‘Dannunzian’ ( Preghiera al Buon Gesù perché non mi faccia essere dannunziano , 1907).

Cf. also Longo, ‘L’ipotesi demitizzante di Gozzano’ (n. 40, above), 149–150, who connects this demythicization of Ulysses to the other important theme of Gozzano and the ‘twilight poets’: the impossibility of producing poetry. As there cannot be a heroic Ulysses, so there cannot be any new Homer or Dante.

G. Pascoli, Il fanciullino , in Prose di Giovanni Pascoli, con una premessa di A. Vicinelli, vol. 1, Pensieri di varia umanità , Milano 1956, 5–56, at 7–10. For an analysis of Pascoli’s ‘poetics of the child’, see C. Salinari, ‘Il fanciullino’ in id., Miti e coscienza del decadentismo italiano (D’Annunzio, Pascoli, Fogazzaro e Pirandello) , Milano 1960, 107–183, and R. LaValva, The Eternal Child. The Poetry and Poetics of Giovanni Pascoli , Chapel Hill 1999.

See below, § 4.

This famous poem has been widely studied. Among the most relevant studies (because of their comparative approach) are Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 128–130; Messineo, Il viaggio di Ulisse (n. 5, above), 43–46; Bertazzoli, ‘Ulisse in D’Annunzio e Pascoli’ (n. 28, above); Nava, ‘Il mito vuoto’ (n. 17, above), 108–113; Gibellini, ‘L’impaziente Odisseo’ (n. 6, above), 501–503; A. Sole, ‘Il momento pascoliano dell’ Odissea ’, in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003, 517–543; Zampese, Ulisse: il ritorno e il viaggio (n. 5, above), 102–113; M. Truglio, Beyond the Family Romance. The Legend of Pascoli , Toronto–Buffalo–London 2007, 65–71 (with a strong psychoanalytical perspective); G. Cerri, ‘Pascoli e l’ Ultimo viaggio di Ulisse ’, in Omero Mediatico. Aspetti della ricezione omerica nella civiltà contemporanea. Atti delle Giornate di Studio, Ravenna, 18–19 2006 , ed. E. Cavallini, Bologna 2007, 15–31 (a very interesting and innovative interpretation of this poem—see below footnotes 56–58). I quote Pascoli’s text according to the following edition: G. Pascoli, L’Ultimo Viaggio . Introduzione, Testo e Commento, ed. E. Piras-Rüegg, Genève 1974.

Selections from the Odyssey are at pp. 202–231. Tennyson’s Ulysses appears at pp. 399–400 and the Ulysses episode of Inferno xxvi is at pp. 528–530 (the pages are those of the 2nd edition of this anthology, which was the only one I could consult: Sul limitare. Prose e poesie per la scuola italiana scelte da Giovanni Pascoli, 2 a edizione accresciuta, Milano-Palermo-Napoli 1902). On Pascoli’s translation of Tennyson’s Ulysses and on the influence of Tennyson on Pascoli, see P. R. Horne, ‘Pascoli, Tennyson, and Gabriele Briganti’, The Modern Language Review 80 (1985), 833–844, esp. 835–838.

On Pascoli’s ‘philological’ and at the same time extremely innovative approach to the classical sources in the Convivial Poems , see V. Citti, ‘La ricezione dell’antico nei Poemi conviviali ’, in I poemi conviviali di Giovanni Pascoli: atti del Convegno di studi di San Mauro Pascoli e Barga, 26–29 settembre 1996, ed. M. Pazzaglia, Scandicci (Firenze) 1997, 99–131.

The episode is certainly one of the most refined and one on which Pascoli dwells more than others. It is thus interesting to read in Pascoli, Il fanciullino (n. 48, above), 8, that Homer, the child-like poet, ‘preferred to linger with the Cyclops rather than with Calypso’ [translation by LaValva, The Eternal Child (n. 48, above), 7]. Pascoli had translated the Cyclops episode of Odyssey 9 for the anthology Sul limitare (at pp. 205–218).

Ulysses and Irus.

Cf. also Sole, ‘Il momento pascoliano dell’ Odissea ’ (n. 50, above), 527–528.

This last episode underwent changes in the various versions of the poem: see M. S. Mirto. ‘«Mi disse: immortale / sarai, se rimani…». Calypso e Giovanni Pascoli’, Maia 60 (2008), 6–14, at 11–12. Of course, one doubt arises: if all the adventures of Ulysses were self-illusion, now that Ulysses is dead, why is Calypso there to receive his body? The immediate answer is that this is poetry, after all, and one should not look for complete consistency. For another answer, see Cerri, ‘Pascoli e l’ Ultimo viaggio di Ulisse ’ (n. 50, above), 27–31, as discussed in the next footnote.

On the figure of Calypso in Pascoli, see L. Bellucci, ‘Chi è Calypso? (nota a L’ultimo viaggio di Giovanni Pascoli)’, in ead., Semantica Pascoliana , Scandicci (Firenze) 1996, 153–165 (who interprets Calypso as the symbol of oblivion, the only way for Ulysses to reach happiness) and Mirto, ‘Calypso e Giovanni Pascoli’ (n. 56, above). Cerri, ‘Pascoli e l’ Ultimo viaggio di Ulisse ’ (n. 50, above), 27–31, gives a totally different interpretation of the end: Ulysses is not dead but the entire ‘last voyage’ has been a dream and the embrace of Calypso is instead the embrace of the old Penelope, who is sleeping next to Ulysses. The hero can only dream in order to believe in his past adventures. According to Cerri, such an interpretation would be suggested by The Return (see below, § 4), which closes with a chorus of old men who invite the old Ulysses to stay in Ithaca even if he cannot recognize it any longer and to spend his time dreaming about his past adventures. From this perspective The Last Voyage would retell one of these dreams. I find Cerri’s interpretation extremely interesting and this is why I mention it here. Whichever of the two readings one chooses, the fundamental point of The Last Voyage remains the same: Pascoli’s Ulysses is in search of his own past and of himself, a quest that will result in a failure except in a dream.

Phemius dies on the island. For a ‘metapoetic’ interpretation of the death of Phemius as the death of epos faced with ‘stark’ reality, see Cerri, ‘Pascoli e l’ Ultimo viaggio di Ulisse ’ (n. 50, above), 23. On Phemius in Pascoli, cf. also below, § 3.3.

Pascoli, Il fanciullino (n. 48, above), 36 [translation by LaValva, The Eternal Child (n. 48, above), 49].

Pascoli, Il fanciullino (n. 48, above), 39 [translation by LaValva, The Eternal Child (n. 48, above), 53].

Cf. Bertazzoli, ‘Ulisse in D’Annunzio e Pascoli’ (n. 28, above), 708–710; Nava, ‘Il mito vuoto’ (n. 17, above), 112–113.

L. Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ [1967] in Dallapiccola on Opera. Selected Writings of Luigi Dallapiccola. Volume One . Translated and Edited by R. Shackelford, Foreword by A. Doráti, Exeter 1987, 232–262. On this opera, see also A. Collisani, ‘Le molte anime dell’Ulisse di Dallapiccola’, in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003, 333–346, and (more on the musical side) R. Fearn, Italian Opera Since 1945 , Amsterdam 1997, 111–121, as well as the articles by R. Illiano-L. Sala, R. Pezzati, M. Ruffini and I. Stoianova, in Luigi Dallapiccola nel suo secolo: atti del Convegno internazionale, Firenze, 10–12 dicembre 2004 , ed. F. Nicolodi, Firenze 2007. On Dallapiccola’s relationship with the Greeks and Greek literature, see F. Serpa, ‘Dallapiccola e i Greci’ also in Nicolodi 2007, 51–58. I quote Dallapiccola’s libretto according to the following edition: L. Dallapiccola, Ulisse: opéra en un prologue et deux actes [sound recording and libretto], Naïve 2003.

See Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 234–236.

See L. Dallapiccola, ‘Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria . Notes on a Practical Edition’ [1942] in Dallapiccola on Opera. Selected Writings of Luigi Dallapiccola. Volume One . Translated and Edited by R. Shackelford, Foreword by A. Doráti, Exeter 1987, 215–231.

See Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 259–262.

In particular three couples are noticeable: Calypso and Penelope; Circe and Melantho; Demodocus and Tiresias. For a description of the complex structure of the opera as well as of the characters, see Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 247–258.

Dallapiccola himself illustrated the structure of this opera with a drawing; see Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 255.

Dallapiccola, ‘Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria ’ (n. 64, above), 220.

For example, these words are repeated again by Circe when Ulysses wants to leave her. In this episode (Act 1, scene iii) Circe also foretells Ulysses’ future even before Tiresias: ‘At Ithaca in vain your tormented heart will look for peace, again it will send you on the vast sea…again, again…until the last day’.

See Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 239.

On Dallapiccola’s conception of Ulysses, see Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 240–245.

From the poem Señor, ya me arrancaste in Campos de Castilla (1917).

‘In the theological meaning of the term’, as Dallapiccola himself clarifies in Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 244.

Cf. Collisani, ‘Le molte anime dell’Ulisse di Dallapiccola’ (n. 62, above), 342 and n. 51.

Cf. Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 246: ‘after bringing him in sight of the mountain of Purgatory, after bringing him to the threshold of the discovery of God, Dante has him drown. Nor could the poet go any further. For him, as for the men of his epoch, only those redeemed by Christ or touched by Grace could rise into the light’.

An introduction in English on Savinio and his multifaceted activity is P. Baldacci, G. Roos, and P. Vivarelli,  Alberto Savinio: Musician, Writer and Painter , New York 1995.

For example, Emma B., Widow Jocasta ( Emma B., vedova Giocasta, 1949), Samuel’s Alcestis ( Alcesti di Samuele , 1949) and Orpheus, Widower ( Orfeo vedovo , 1950). On Savinio’s classicism, see B. Zandrino, ‘L’eclisse del divino: il teatro di Alberto Savinio’, in La letteratura in scena: il teatro del Novecento , ed. G. Bàrberi Squarotti, Torino 1985, 207–219, and C. Benussi, ‘Il mito classico nel riuso novecentesco: Marinetti, Savinio, Bontempelli, Gadda, Calvino’, in Il mito nella letteratura italiana del ‘900, ed. P. Gibellini, Humanitas 54 (1999), 554–577, at 557–565.

On this play, see Boitani, The Shadow of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 139–141; S. Zampieri, Review of A. Savinio, Capitano Ulisse , a cura di A. Tinterri, Milano 1989, Belfagor 44 (1989), 604–606; M. Sacco Messineo, ‘Le maschere del mito: «Capitan Ulisse» di Savinio’, in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003, 545–562; A. Usai,  Il mito nell'opera letteraria e pittorica di Alberto Savinio , Roma 2005, 71–84 (with a focus on the stage setting and the ‘Pirandellian’ tone of the play). I quote Savinio’s text according to the following edition: A. Savinio, Capitano Ulisse , a cura di A. Tinterri, terza edizione, Milano 2003.

Savinio, Capitano Ulisse (n. 78, above), 43.

Savinio, Capitano Ulisse (n. 78, above), 85.

Savinio, Capitano Ulisse (n. 78, above), 119. Interestingly, the same equation of Penelope with Circe and Calypso recurs in the film Ulysses (1954) by Mario Camerini, starring Kirk Douglas as Ulysses. The same actress, Silvana Mangano, plays the three female roles—in fact, in the film the character of Calypso is absent, but is conflated with Circe, who offers immortality to Ulysses (as Calypso does in Od. 5.135–136, 203–210); cf. J. Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema , New Haven 2001, 109–110.

Savinio, Capitano Ulisse (n. 78, above), 124.

A. Savinio, La verità sull’ultimo viaggio , in id., Capitano Ulisse , a cura di A. Tinterri, terza edizione, Milano 2003, 9–30.

Savinio, La verità sull’ultimo viaggio (n. 83, above), 11.

It is thus interesting to read Savinio’s comments on Homer’s Ulysses in an article on Monteverdi’s Ritorno in Patria di Ulisse : Homer’s Ulysses is an ‘Ibsenian character’ who, ‘in order to die as he preferred, would have to wait for Dante to make him cross the Pillars of Hercules and be engulfed by a whirlwind in view of the mountain of Purgatory’. I quote from Dallapiccola, ‘Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria ’ (n. 64, above), 219–220.

Savinio, La verità sull’ultimo viaggio (n. 83, above), 24–25.

Savinio, La verità sull’ultimo viaggio (n. 83, above), 26.

Zampieri, Review of A. Savinio, Capitano Ulisse (n. 78, above), 604, defines the play as a ‘tragedy of desire’.

Zampieri, Review of A. Savinio, Capitano Ulisse (n. 78, above), interprets the play as autobiographical: Ulysses-Savinio is the cosmopolitan Greek who reaches his individualistic freedom by overcoming middle-class egalitarianism.

Savinio, La verità sull’ultimo viaggio (n. 83, above), 20. Also Savinio’s ‘Dannunzian’ Circe is clearly polemical against D’Annunzio and his ideals. Cf. Sacco Messineo, ‘Le maschere del mito’ (n. 78, above), 549, and Usai,  Il mito nell'opera letteraria e pittorica di Alberto Savinio (n. 78, above), 76–77.

On Malerba’s novel, see P. Pucci, ‘La scrittura di Ulisse’, in Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita , ed. S. Nicosia, Venezia 2003, 563–577, and Zampese, Ulisse: il ritorno e il viaggio (n. 5, above), 134–140. I quote Malerba’s text according to the following edition: L. Malerba, Itaca per sempre , Milano 1997.

In the ‘Post Scriptum’ Malerba explains that he conceived the story while dining with Pietro Pucci, Professor of Classics at Cornell University and friend of Malerba. While they were discussing the Odyssey , Malerba’s wife said that Penelope must have recognized Ulysses from the very beginning; she just did not say it because she wanted to take revenge on him for his cheating and lack of trust.

See Hall, The Return of Ulysses (n. 1, above), 104–105, 136–139, 166.

This trend seems to continue even in the twenty-first century. Valerio Massimo Manfredi recently wrote two novels on Ulysses as part of a saga entitled My Name is Nobody ( Il mio nome è Nessuno ); the first volume, The Oath ( Il giuramento , 2012), stretches to the end of the Trojan War; the second volume, The Return ( Il ritorno , 2013), recounts Ulysses’ return to Ithaca and then his departure for the voyage as commanded by Tiresias in Od. 11.121–137. In the last chapters (Ch. 25–27 and epilogue) Ulysses thus leaves in search of a place where people do not know what an oar is. This novel concludes before Ulysses has reached his goal, as he walks through an unknown, cold northern land with no end in sight. In Manfredi’s novel too, then, even if there is no mention of Dante’s last voyage, Ulysses is a wandering hero without return.

See L. Dallapiccola, ‘Ulisse at La Scala. Notes for the Italian Première, 13 January 1970’, in Dallapiccola on Opera. Selected Writings of Luigi Dallapiccola. Volume One . Translated and Edited by R. Shackelford, Foreword by A. Doráti, Exeter 1987, 263–266.

On this novel and the film by Jean-Luc Godard based on it ( Le mépris , 1963), see A. Carson, ‘Contempts’, Arion 16 (2009), 1–10.

A. Moravia, Contempt , translated by A. Davidson, introduction by T. Parks, New York 1999, 211.

H. Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence . A Theory of Poetry , Second Edition, Oxford 1997, 7.

On the influence of Graf on Gozzano, see G. de Liguori, I «baratri della ragione»: Arturo Graf e la cultura del secondo Ottocento , Manduria 1986, 95, 109, 145–146, 151, 233.

On this correspondence, see A. Traina, ‘I fratelli nemici. Allusioni antidannunziane nel Pascoli’, in D’Annunzio e il classicismo , Quaderni del Vittoriale 23 (1980), 229–240, and Bertazzoli, ‘Ulisse in D’Annunzio e Pascoli’ (n. 28, above). D’Annunzio’s Maia came out in May 1903 and thus before Pascoli’s Convivial Poems (with The Sleep of Odysseus and The Last Voyage ), which came out in 1904. However, The Sleep of Odysseus had already been published as a separate poem in Nuova Antologia in 1899. As Bertazzoli, ‘Ulisse in D’Annunzio e Pascoli’ (n. 28, above), 705, suggests, D’Annunzio then probably knew the poem since he seems to reply to it when he speaks of a ‘vigilant’ Ulysses (cf. Maia iv 40–41: e vigile in ogni / muscolo): D’Annunzio’s Ulysses does not sleep like Pascoli’s Ulysses.

Dallapiccola, ‘Birth of a Libretto’ (n. 62, above), 250. In his opera Dallapiccola also echoes some lines from Cavafy’s Ithaca (ll. 9–12) when Circe tells Ulysses: ‘Ulysses, you would have never encountered the Cyclopes nor the Laestrygonians, if you did not have them already in your heart’ (Dallapiccola, Ulisse , Act 1, scene iii).

Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence (n. 98, above), 94; see also ibid., 70 and 95–96.

Acknowledgements

This paper started as a presentation at a workshop on the ‘Reception of the Odyssey ’ organized at Harvard University in April 2009. I would like to thank Richard Thomas and Jon Solomon for their comments and help at the time of the workshop as well as the two anonymous referees of IJCT for their constructive criticism and suggestions on an earlier version of this article. I am also very grateful to Artemis Leontis for reading the paper and discussing the myth of Ulysses with me many times over and to Ben Fortson for a few stylistic matters.

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Schironi, F. A Hero Without Nostos : Ulysses’ Last Voyage in Twentieth-Century Italy. Int class trad 22 , 341–379 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-014-0367-6

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Ulysses Summary & Analysis by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
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"Ulysses" was written in 1833 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the future Poet Laureate of Great Britain. The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue spoken by Ulysses, a character who also appears in Homer's Greek epic The Odyssey and Dante's Italian epic the Inferno (Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus). In The Odyssey , Ulysses/Odysseus struggles to return home, but in Tennyson's "Ulysses," an aged Ulysses is frustrated with domestic life and yearns to set sail again and continue exploring the world. Dante seems to condemn Ulysses's recklessness as an explorer, but in Tennyson's poem, there is nobility and heroism in Ulysses' boundless curiosity and undaunted spirit.

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The Full Text of “Ulysses”

1 It little profits that an idle king, 

2 By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 

3 Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 

4 Unequal laws unto a savage race, 

5 That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 

6 I cannot rest from travel: I will drink 

7 Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd 

8 Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

9 That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when 

10 Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

11 Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; 

12 For always roaming with a hungry heart 

13 Much have I seen and known; cities of men 

14 And manners, climates, councils, governments, 

15 Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; 

16 And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 

17 Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

18 I am a part of all that I have met; 

19 Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

20 Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

21 For ever and forever when I move. 

22 How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

23 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

24 As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 

25 Were all too little, and of one to me 

26 Little remains: but every hour is saved 

27 From that eternal silence, something more, 

28 A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

29 For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

30 And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

31 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

32 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

33          This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 

34 To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— 

35 Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 

36 This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 

37 A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 

38 Subdue them to the useful and the good. 

39 Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 

40 Of common duties, decent not to fail 

41 In offices of tenderness, and pay 

42 Meet adoration to my household gods, 

43 When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

44          There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: 

45 There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, 

46 Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— 

47 That ever with a frolic welcome took 

48 The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 

49 Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; 

50 Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; 

51 Death closes all: but something ere the end, 

52 Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

53 Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

54 The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 

55 The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 

56 Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 

57 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 

58 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

59 The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

60 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

61 Of all the western stars, until I die. 

62 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 

63 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 

64 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

65 Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 

66 We are not now that strength which in old days 

67 Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

68 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

69 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

70 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“Ulysses” Summary

“ulysses” themes.

Mortality and Aging

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Adventure and Knowledge

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Heroism and Overcoming Limitations

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “ulysses”.

It little profits that an idle king,  By this still hearth, among these barren crags,  Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole  Unequal laws unto a savage race,  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink  Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd  Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those  That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when  Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades  Vext the dim sea:

Lines 11-17

I am become a name;  For always roaming with a hungry heart  Much have I seen and known; cities of men  And manners, climates, councils, governments,  Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;  And drunk delight of battle with my peers,  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

Lines 18-24

I am a part of all that I have met;  Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'  Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades  For ever and forever when I move.  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!

Lines 24-28

Life piled on life  Were all too little, and of one to me  Little remains: but every hour is saved  From that eternal silence, something more,  A bringer of new things;

Lines 28-32

and vile it were  For some three suns to store and hoard myself,  And this gray spirit yearning in desire  To follow knowledge like a sinking star,  Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

Lines 33-38

 This is my son, mine own Telemachus,  To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil  This labour, by slow prudence to make mild  A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees  Subdue them to the useful and the good. 

Lines 39-43

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere  Of common duties, decent not to fail  In offices of tenderness, and pay  Meet adoration to my household gods,  When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

Lines 44-49

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:  There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,  Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—  That ever with a frolic welcome took  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed  Free hearts, free foreheads

Lines 49-53

you and I are old;  Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;  Death closes all: but something ere the end,  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

Lines 54-59

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,  'T is not too late to seek a newer world.  Push off, and sitting well in order smite  The sounding furrows;

Lines 59-64

for my purpose holds  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths  Of all the western stars, until I die.  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

Lines 65-67

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'  We are not now that strength which in old days  Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

Lines 68-70

One equal temper of heroic hearts,  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“Ulysses” Symbols

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“Ulysses” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

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Understatement

Climax (figure of speech), alliteration, “ulysses” vocabulary.

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• Unburnish’d
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Ulysses”

Rhyme scheme, “ulysses” speaker, “ulysses” setting, literary and historical context of “ulysses”, more “ulysses” resources, external resources.

Homer's Odyssey — An English translation from a website specializing in ancient Greek and Roman literature.

Dante's Inferno — An English translation (alongside the original Italian) of Canto 26 of Dante's Inferno, in which Dante and Virgil meet Ulysses.

Tennyson's Biography — A detailed introductory biography of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Helen Mirren Reads "Ulysses" — Acclaimed actress Helen Mirren reads the last portion of "Ulysses" on the Late Show.

"Ulysses" in Skyfall — The last lines of "Ulysses" are featured in a dramatic scene in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall

LitCharts on Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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Crossing the Bar

Tears, Idle Tears

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Lady of Shalott

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Ulysses' Last Voyage

By dante alighieri.

I launched her with my small remaining band and, putting out to sea, we set the main on that lone ship and said farewell to land. Far to starboard rose the coast of Spain, astern was Sardi, Islas at our bow, and soon we saw Morocco port abeam. Though I and comrades now were old and slow, we hauled till nightfall for the narrow sound where Hercules had shown what not to do, by setting marks for men to stay behind. At dawn the starboard lookout made Seville, and at the straits stood Ceuta t'other hand. "Brothers," I shouted, "who have had the will to come through danger, and have reached the west! our time awake is brief from now until the senses die, and so I say we test the sun's own motion and do not forego the worlds beyond, unknown and peopleless. Think of the roots from which you sprang, and show that you are human: not unconscious brutes but made to follow virtue and to know."

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More Poems Published by this Author

• The Thorn Forest
• Sonnet: Spirit Of Love
• Sonnet: My Lady
• Sonnet: I Muse Over
• Sonnet: Beauty Of Her Face
• Sonnet: All My Thoughts
• Purgatorio (English)
• Paradiso (English)
• O Intelligence Moving The Third Heaven
• La Vita Nuova

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