Describe the conflict faced by the speaker in "Ulysses." Does Tennyson see Ulysses as heroic or as selfish and self-justifying? Explain your answers...

One
conflict faced by the speaker in this poem is the conflict between his age and his waning
strength on the one hand and his desire for more adventures on the other. Indeed,acknowledges
that he no longer possesses "that strength which in old days / Moved earth and
heaven," but, nonetheless, he is determined to "strive, to seek, to find, and not to
yield."

Another conflict faced by the speaker is implied in your answer.
Ulysses must decide whether to stay and rule over the people of Ithaca or leave and fulfill his
own desires for adventure. He decides upon the latter course, and this may indeed be a selfish
choice. However, he does leave behind his son, Telemachus, who he says is "discerning"
and "pruden[t]." If Ulysses believes that his son can rule as well as he, then perhaps
his decision to leave them is not so selfish after all. Or, at the very least, his selfishness
is mitigated somewhat.

There seems to be far more evidence in the poem that
Ulysses is heroic rather...