 English theologian Richard Holt Hutton summarized the poem as Tennyson 's " friendly picture of the <unk> <unk> for new experience , enterprise , and adventure , when under the control of a luminous reason and a self @-@ controlled will . " The contemporary poet Matthew Arnold was early in observing the narrative irony of the poem : he found Ulysses ' speech " the least plain , the most un @-@ Homeric , which can possibly be conceived . Homer presents his thought to you just as it wells from the source of his mind : Mr. Tennyson carefully <unk> his thought before he will part with it . Hence comes ... a heightened and elaborate air . " 
