Beyond the Verse Reckoning with Mortality in Tennyson's 'Ulysses' & 'Tithonus'
In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe close season four by turning to Alfred Lord Tennyson, one of the defining poetic voices of the Victorian age.
They begin with Tennyson’s life and career, from his birth in Lincolnshire in 1809 to his time at Cambridge, where he became part of the Apostles and formed his deeply important friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam. The episode places special attention on Hallam’s sudden death in 1833, a loss that shaped much of Tennyson’s poetry. Maiya and Joe also trace Tennyson’s rise as a major poet, his appointment as UK Poet Laureate in 1850, and his lasting place in British literary history.
The discussion then turns to two of Tennyson’s most powerful mythological poems: ‘Ulysses’ and ‘Tithonus’. Maiya and Joe examine how ‘Ulysses’ presents an aging hero who longs for movement, adventure, and meaning, even as he feels trapped by ordinary life. They also consider how the poem speaks to grief, ambition, leadership, Victorian progress, and the fear of growing old. In ‘Tithonus’, they explore a darker vision of immortality, where endless life becomes a form of suffering rather than a gift.
By the end of the episode, Maiya and Joe show how Tennyson uses myth to speak about deeply human concerns: grief, aging, ambition, regret, and the painful limits of mortal life. As the final episode of season four, it becomes a fitting close to a series shaped by poets, voices, and questions that continue to matter.
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