 Until the early twentieth century , readers reacted to " Ulysses " <unk> . The meaning of the poem was increasingly debated as Tennyson 's stature rose . After <unk> F. Baum criticized Ulysses ' inconsistencies and Tennyson 's conception of the poem in 1948 , the ironic interpretation became dominant . Baum finds in Ulysses echoes of Lord Byron 's flawed heroes , who similarly display conflicting emotions , self @-@ critical <unk> , and a rejection of social responsibility . Even Ulysses ' resolute final <unk> — " To strive , to seek , to find , and not to yield " — is undercut by irony , when Baum and later critics compare this line to Satan 's " courage never to submit or yield " in John Milton 's Paradise Lost ( 1667 ) . 
