Comparing The Wanderer And The Seafarer

During the Anglo-Saxon time period, individuals wrote poems about achievements, deaths, emotions, and adventures taken by certain individuals. There were many popular poems during this era including, “Beowulf” translated by Burton Raffer and “The Wanderer” translated by Charles W. Kennedy. Although both these poems were written during this era, “Beowulf” was an epic poem and “The Wanderer” was an elegiac poem. However, both of these pieces shared certain characteristics related to the culture and values of the Anglo-Saxon culture. Many attributes that make up this culture are related to both Pagan and Christian beliefs. This includes many ideals relating to fate and God. The culture and values of Anglo-Saxons through “Beowulf” and “The Wanderer”, suggest that along one’s quest emerges an individuals outlook on ways of life.

Life standed on the sea is very grueling and risky. Only a few are able to face the

Both the ‘Odyssey’ and ‘1001 Nights’ feature male protagonists who traverse the seas, and the concepts and themes of men seafaring is common throughout most canonical texts. For example, the allusion of Odysseus’ difficult journey is made when a minor male character in Apuleius’ ‘The Golden Ass’ describes his seafaring adventures as being ‘positively Ulyssian’ (‘Ulyssian’ thus being a reference the Roman naming of Odysseus) (pg 29). Furthermore, both texts share themes, such as: seafaring, the supernatural, trials and tribulations, tradition, belief systems, and the geographical setting and pride in the protagonist’s home city play a key role to the overarching plots of the texts in the sense of the protagonist’s endurance and motivation to both leave and return home. Likewise, the supernatural is used to further the plot of both texts.

The “Seafarer” and the “Wife’s Lament” poems are series of Anglo-Saxon exile poem. Each poem has its own syntaxes, however throughout the Seafarer and Wife’s Lament poem the theme of loneliness is the underline vividly to the reader. In the Seafarer and the Wife’s Lament, both characters are exiled and in great sadness, however, the Seafarer’s view of heaven allows him to see a future beyond his hardships.

The life in the ship is harsh and full of struggles which represent the typical life experience of human being.

When isolated from society, loneliness becomes a part of you. In the poems, The Wife’s Lament translated by Ann Stanford and The Seafarer translated by Burton Raffel, are two similar and different poems. The characters in these poems handle their exiles in different ways. The way the two characters reflect from their exile is based off Anglo-Saxon values and beliefs. These poems compare and contrast the exile between men and women.

The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament all contains faith verses fate. The three poems are very similar and very different. The three poems ranging from a lonely man, to a lost soldier, to a wife’s bedrail. The medieval poems show hurt, confusion, and loneliness.

Anglo-Saxon literature often expressed concepts of survival, battle, exile, male dominance in society, and loyalty to the lord. These aspects are strongly represented in both “The Wanderer” and “The Wife’s Lament”. Both elegies deliver themes of self-exile and the mourning of lost companions. Ideas of longing and alienation are present in these two Anglo-Saxon poems through use of figurative language, structure, point of view, comparison, and various other literary techniques.

The Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, era of England lasted from about 450-1066 A.D. The tribes from Germany that conquered Britain in the fifth century carried with them both the Old English language and a detailed poetic tradition. The tradition included alliteration, stressed and unstressed syllables, but more importantly, the poetry was usually mournful, reflecting on suffering and loss.1These sorrowful poems from the Anglo Saxon time period are mimetic to the Anglo-Saxons themselves; they reflect the often burdened and miserable lives and times of the people who created them. The Anglo-Saxon poems, “The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer,” and “The Wife’s Lament,”

It’s easy to tell that the ocean is a mysterious and isolating place from all of the tragic tales we hear from sailors both real and fictional. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and an anonymous author’s “The Seafarer” are quite similar in that they both revolve around said tragic tales told by sailors. However, there seem to be more commonalities between their themes, tones, and messages rather than their seaward-bound settings. But before we can discuss these similar settings and deeper themes, we have to tackle their origins.

The speaker of “The Seafarer” believes that soon the warrior way of life will no longer be

In “The Seafarer”, a man is telling the story of his life and

The epic journey of “The Old Man and the Sea” describes struggle, discipline and manhood. The main characters relationships exemplify how faith and skill overcome man’s adversity during life on the sea. Santiago’s growing relationship with the boy idealizes his statute as a father figure and develops his integrity and values towards the boy. Hemmingway shows us how an old fisherman’s will to overcome the sea’s obstacles proves his manhood to himself and the young boy. His skills and knowledge of the sea provide a positive influence for the young boy to become a great fisherman someday.

[and] so graced by God”. The speaker clearly uses alliteration to express his feelings towards his journey. He also establishes to the reader that he is influenced by a religious motive. His ideas may have contributed to the religious values the Anglo- Saxons believed in: Pagan, and Christian. The man also describes his experience on sea as he , “drifting [drifted] through winter on an ice cold sea, whirled in sorrow, alone in a world blown clear of love, hung with icicles. Through the use of imagery we can understand the isolated setting of the ocean, and how his loneliness led to a deepening sadness. Overall, “The Seafarer” influenced today’s literature through the use of various literary devices. The man’s personal feelings and ideas about

Unlike the wandering narrator, the seafaring narrator focuses his descriptions of the community that is present in nature. The seafarer the utterly rejects the notion that a “sheltering family / could bring consolation for his desolate soul” (25-26). This “sheltering family” (25) that the seafaring narrator alludes to in this line is the exact form of close-knit family that the narrator in “The Wanderer” laments for desperately. While the seafaring narrator offers striking similar descriptions of the landscape being “bound by ice” (9), he does not focus on these descriptions to dwell on the loss of an earthly community. Instead, the narrator in “The Seafarer” finds the landscape that he inhabits wonderfully abundant with natural — even spiritual — elements that are commonly associated with an earthly community. In the barren landscape, the seafaring narrator discovers “the wild swan’s song / sometimes served for music” (19-20) and “the curlew’s cry for the laugher of men” (20-21). These vibrant and vivid descriptions of the natural world that the narrator discovers in the harsh,