 According to Victorian scholar Linda Hughes , the emotional gulf between the state of his domestic affairs and the loss of his special friendship informs the reading of " Ulysses " — particularly its treatment of domesticity . At one moment , Ulysses ' discontent seems to mirror that of Tennyson , who would have been frustrated with managing the house in such a state of grief . At the next , Ulysses is determined to transcend his age and his environment by travelling again . It may be that Ulysses ' determination to defy circumstance attracted Tennyson to the myth ; he said that the poem " gave my feeling about the need of going forward and <unk> the struggle of life " . On another occasion , the poet stated , " There is more about myself in Ulysses , which was written under the sense of loss and that all had gone by , but that still life must be fought out to the end . It was more written with the feeling of his loss upon me than many poems in In <unk> . " Hallam 's death influenced much of Tennyson 's poetry , including perhaps his most highly regarded work , In <unk> <unk> , begun in 1833 and completed seventeen years later . 
