Tennyson responds to the issues of Victorian Age in his own way. He believes in giving his people strong political and household leaders. Do you...

This is certainly
something that can be argued from the lines of this poem. After all, , in his desire to go and
leave his responsibilities as king of Ithaca, works hard to ensure that he leaves a suitable
replacement behind so that he is not simply abandoning his people to mere anarchy without any
form of leadership at all. Note how Ulysses refers to his son in this poem:

This is my son, mine own Telemachos,
To whom I leave the
sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labour,
by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue
them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone.  He works his work, I
mine.

It is clear from this quote that Ulysses feels that
his son, Telemachos, will in many ways do a better job than he did, and that he is more suited
to the role of king of Ithace than his father ever was. Note how Telemachos is characterised: he
has a desire to take on and "fulfill" the labour of being a king, which Ulysses
describes in a rather arduous and backbreaking way, as it involves "slow prudence" and
is a "labour." Telemachos in addition is "blameless" and "decent"
and also pious in the way that he will ensure the household gods receive sufficient worshp and
adoration when Ulysses is gone. However, what is clear from the final sentence of this quote is
that Ulysses indicates that his "work" is a different one from his son's and therefore
signals that they are different people with different gifts and abilities, perhaps indicating
the reason for his decision to seek adventure one more time. The poem therefore indicates the
belief that Tennyson had in strong leadership, but the problem is that it also seems to present
a very ambiguous picture of Ulysses himself: in one sense, he is willfully abandoning his roles
and responsibilities to seek adventure in a rather reckless way. The reader is left with the
impression that he cannot be considered to be a very good leader if he places satisfying his own
needs and pleasures above those of his people.