The Invitation: Ulysses

By the English 30-1 students of Ms. Janice Ottewell, Highwood High School, Alberta

What do people do today when they've got something to say to the world? They go online, that's what. And we've got something to say about Ulysses! Who was this hero: a reckless adventurer, destroying everyone's lives around him while he chased the next big thrill, or a fabulous role model for restless youth today? Who were the women in his life, and why should we care? What about the son he left behind? Can a personal quest ever justify leaving home and family to fend for themselves? And why, at the end of all his adventures, can't Ulysses settle down?

Questions like these point to huge themes that have been important to human beings since the dawn of time. Generation after generation, they rear their heads. And generation after generation, we seem to need to find our own answers; to look into the mirrors that great literature holds up, and to walk through the doors it opens.

Once we read the poem a couple of times, we did some writing about our first impressions of this poem. Here is our work according to the quotation from the play that we responded to.

"I will drink life to the lees"

• Throughout life, death is always a controversial issue...
• The poem Ulysses is about a man who wants adventure to the end of his life...
• It is very important for people to live life to the fullest...
• Age fades people but it should never truly take their spirit.
• A person’s age is measured by the state of mind.
• ...you can retire a person but you can never retire their mind.
• The world has been over run by old people!
• ...longing for the bell to toll their forgotten name
• Where did the time go; why did I not let my hungry heart lead me?
• to go on one last adventure before death
• they do not want to face the fact that they are getting old
• They wasted their time until it was too late.
• there have always been individuals who never stopped living
• Age is not a number; it is an outlook on life.
• The human life and mind is too valuable a treasure to waste away...

Our class has produced this online zine that uses Tennyson's "Ulysses" as an anchor, and that opens the door and shines the mirror so that other young people can find connections to the poem and the story that inspired it.