The Wanderer: Life in a Transient World
Upon their invasion of England, the Anglo-Saxons carried with them a tradition of oral poetry. The surviving verse, which was frequently transcribed and preserved in monasteries makes up the body of work now referred to as Old English Poetry. "The Wanderer," an anonymous poem of the eighth or ninth century, reflects historical Anglo-Saxon life as well as the influence of Christianity during the period.
Because both Christian and Anglo-Saxon heroic elements exist in "The Wanderer," there is cause for analysis of the structural and textual unity of the poem. Initially, it might appear that these elements are introduced to contrast one another in an attempt to show inconsistency by contrasting secular and religious passages in order to show incoherence between the two as guiding principles. But further textual analysis shows that these inconsistencies do not exist. The purpose of positioning the two side by side is to illustrate a contrast in theme between the passing of this world and the changelessness and security of the heavenly kingdom.
The text of "The Wanderer" is structured to encompass two separate time periods, which implicitly reveals the contrasting themes. The first part of the work describes the experiences of a lonely warrior who has lost his lord and kin to battle. But the author is reflecting upon these experiences as they occurred in the past. The position that the Wanderer had taken up is summarized early in the poem in the third person: "So spoke the earth-walker, remembering hardships, fierce war-slaughters-the fall of dear kinsman" (69). This reference to an exile wanderer summarizes his own situation, which he develops in the following passages. Structurally, t...
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...70). Further, he acknowledges that these things are meant to pass as all things do as he approaches the ultimate reality of the earthly world, "all this earthly habitation shall be emptied" (70). No comfort is to be found in a world were all things will come to an end as one progresses through a fleeting life.
The purpose of displaying earthly reality as transient is to contrast it with the theme of a heavenly kingdom. As the poem ends, the Wanderer notes that there is, "comfort from the Father in heaven, where all stability resides" (70). The heart of Anglo-Saxon life will pass for all as it did for the Wanderer. Comfort is not to be found in that transient world, but in the world beyond, through security in the heavenly kingdom.
Works Cited
"The Wanderer." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. 6th _ed. New York: Norton, 1993. 68-70.
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In the first section Skrzynecki suggests that the physical journey is both literally and metaphorically away from Europe and the tragedy of war and represents the undertakers’ changing perspective. The introductory stanza of the first section immediately describes the undertaking of the physical journey which the poet implies is an escape but the voyage is described in an ambivalent tone. The adjective many denotes the fact that there was a whole mass of the immigrants and heat implies that the discomforting and cramped situation of the migrants wasn’t pleasant. Never see again emphasises the fact that these people are migrating and will never return to their homeland. The migrants’ physical description Shirtless, in shorts and barefooted stresses the lack of their belongings as they’ve left everything behind and their milk-white skin implies that their skin colour isn’t right for their adopted country, Australia and depicts that they won’t be comfortable there. The second stanza’s description of the migrants with the imagery of shackles, sunken eyes, ’secrets and exiles portrays them in disgrace as if they are running away from their homeland. Their sunken eyes also conveys their hardship in suffering and the war’s adversity and the shackles further emphasises their oppression and their confinement. To look for shorelines implies their desire to purge their suffering and inner turmoil as they find some consolation and hope in starting a new life. The last word of the stanza exiles implicates their expulsion from their land in fact they actually chose to leave.
O. Henry once said, “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.” The poem goes a lot a deeper than the words on the page, the items and decisions within it really make you see things differently. Three symbols really stuck out to me; adolescence, sadness, and timelessness.
The fourth section is primarily a brief interpolation that damages the elegy. The Wanderer briefly expands his personal loss to bewail the loss of a way of life: “Thus this middle-earth/ droops and decays every single day” (62-63). Unfortunately, then the scribe wanders off into a repetitive, priestly homily about what a man “must be” (65). The brief, trite interpolation distracts from the grandeur of the
"The Wanderer." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. 6th _ed. New York: Norton, 1993.
Abrams, M.H., et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. 2 Vols. New York: Norton, 1993.
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Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
"The Wanderer." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. 68-70.
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This essay-like commentary is aimed at discussing how John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) conforms to the genre of Epic or Heroic Poetry. In order to achieve that first they will be enlightened the similarities of this work, in both form and content, with the general characteristics of the genre. Afterwards, a closer look will be provided to the way Milton’s work incorporates and adapts the elements that the classical period and Old English added to Epic. Finally, a conclusion will be determined.
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