Poetic treatments of journey in Tennyson s Ulysses and Dickinsons Because I could not stop for death 
English Literature written exercise on Tennyson and Dickinson
Task: Compare and contrast these two different poetic treatments of the idea of journey.
Focus on subject matter, compositional techniques including narrative voice and structure, style (especially choice of language) and what you take to be the authors’ values and intentions.
Length: 1200-1500 words.
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”, and Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses” are two vastly different poems written several decades apart that both focus centrally on the idea of a journey. “Because I could not stop for Death” was written in about 1860 by Emily Dickinson, an unconventional nineteenth century American poet. In 1833, Lord Alfred Tennyson, a well-educated Romantic poet, wrote “Ulysses”. In developing their respective poems around central theme of a journey, both Tennyson and Dickinson’s protagonists themselves experience and undertake journeys, the natures of which however are vastly different. The journey’s described are not only very different in their substance, but in the way that the poets develop and explore the journeys their protagonists undertake. Despite their differences however, both of the poems share a fixation with death as a journey, though there is contrast in how this is explored.
Tennyson’s “Ulysses”, two journey’s are explored, the first being the journey of the speaker Ulysses upon his return from the battle of Troy, during which he experiences greatness and develops a craving for adventure. The second journey is the journey that which his experiences have inspired him to desire to undertake, a journey of fulfilment and “to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought”. Ulysses’ is intensely dissatisfied at the prospect wasting his existence as a stagnant ruler. In the first stanza Ulysses reflects on the travel and adventures that have shaped the very essence of his being, saying “I am a part of all that I
Task: Compare and contrast these two different poetic treatments of the idea of journey.
Focus on subject matter, compositional techniques including narrative voice and structure, style (especially choice of language) and what you take to be the authors’ values and intentions.
Length: 1200-1500 words.
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”, and Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses” are two vastly different poems written several decades apart that both focus centrally on the idea of a journey. “Because I could not stop for Death” was written in about 1860 by Emily Dickinson, an unconventional nineteenth century American poet. In 1833, Lord Alfred Tennyson, a well-educated Romantic poet, wrote “Ulysses”. In developing their respective poems around central theme of a journey, both Tennyson and Dickinson’s protagonists themselves experience and undertake journeys, the natures of which however are vastly different. The journey’s described are not only very different in their substance, but in the way that the poets develop and explore the journeys their protagonists undertake. Despite their differences however, both of the poems share a fixation with death as a journey, though there is contrast in how this is explored.
Tennyson’s “Ulysses”, two journey’s are explored, the first being the journey of the speaker Ulysses upon his return from the battle of Troy, during which he experiences greatness and develops a craving for adventure. The second journey is the journey that which his experiences have inspired him to desire to undertake, a journey of fulfilment and “to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought”. Ulysses’ is intensely dissatisfied at the prospect wasting his existence as a stagnant ruler. In the first stanza Ulysses reflects on the travel and adventures that have shaped the very essence of his being, saying “I am a part of all that I