Critic E. J. Chiasson argued in 1954 that Ulysses is without faith in an afterlife , and that Tennyson use a " method of indirection " to affirm the need for religious faith by showing how Ulysses ' lack of faith lead to his neglect of kingdom and family . Chiasson regard the poem as " intractable " in Tennyson 's canon , but find that the poem 's meaning resolve itself when this indirection is understood : it illustrate Tennyson 's conviction that " disregarding religious sanctions and ' submitting all things to desire ' lead to either a sybaritic or a brutal repudiation of responsibility and ' life ' . "