No character study of Odysseus comes closer to perfection than Tennyson’s:
And tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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.
The Ulysses of Tennyson—and for that matter, of Alexander Pope—is a cunning and amoral man in rebellion against fate and time. Cleverest and wittiest of all heroes, he surpasses even the Olympians in arrogance and ego, and in consequence is disfavored and punished by them all (excepting only gray-eyed Athena).
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