Thoughts on Tennyson/Atwood

As yesterday’s and today’s poems show, I’m a fan of The Odyssey. I much prefer it to the Iliad.

Maybe it’s the ability to take Odysseus’ story and adapt it/apply it to different settings. You’ve got Big Fish and O Brother, Where Art Thou? among other modern retellings. And Homer’s appearance in Wings of Desire is one of the many reasons I love that movie.

Atwood’s poem takes the reader inside one of the monsters Odysseys encounters. Not surprising, given her novel The Penelopiad. Which all fit into my affinity for retellings of myths and classic stories. I’m very pleased that the Penelopiad link above let me know about a series of books I didn’t know existed. Kindle samples are winging their way to me now.

Poetry Month: Ulysses (Tennyson)

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: I am become a name;