ed in Tennyson's poem, save for the obvious audience, the reader. Additionally, it is never determined if Ulysses is successful in creating a following. The obscurity and question of the audience, or lack thereof, is the basis for Tennnyson's questioning the legitimacy or resonance of the Hero as Poet in Victorian society. The question itself suggests there isn't an audience, and that all Ulysses' noble words fall on deaf ears. The suggestion that the Ithacan people and the Victorian people are both in crisis and need a hero, but are denying themselves of salvation, of leadership in their time of crisis. There is no place for the Hero as Poet in Ithacan or Victorian society, which makes him a tragic hero.This attitude is tightly woven into Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott, and the tragic nature of the Hero as Poet is embodied in the Lady herself in her attempts for recognition in a world that cannot comprehend what she is. The Lady of Shalott is an isolated hero, alone in Four gray walls, and four gray towers......And the silent isle embowersThe Lady of Shalott. (L.S., 15-18)She is unseen by the rest of the world, as a Hero as Poet would be in Victorian society. Only farmers hear her song echoing in the forest, yet they do not understand what they are hearing. They speculate that it is "'the fairy Lady of Shalott'" (L.S., 35-36). It is learned the Lady is an artist, a hero with a unique and divinely connected perspective on the world. She "weaves by night and day a magic web..." (L.S., 37-38) and she sees ...thro' a mirror clearThat hangs before her all the year,Shadows of the world appear. (L.S., 46-48)This is blatantly a portrayal of Carlyle's Hero as Poet. The Lady has a magic (divine) way of seeing the world, and in her towers she looks down on the world, therefore having a loftier perspective and a more exalted position than the rest of society physically being higher. Tennyson hints of traditional lofty Greek tragic heroes when the ...
