The Wanderer Essays

  • Masculinity In Beowulf And The Wanderer

    1507 Words  | 4 Pages

    Merriam-Webster defines exile as the state or a period of forced or voluntary absence from one’s country or home. Both the Wife in “The Wife’s Lament” and the narrator of “The Wanderer” have their own form of exile that results in inner conflict. The Wife suffers from the estrangement from her husband, and she constantly mourns for happier times. The Wife despises the fact that women must be serious, strong, and well-held together for their family and husband and never show a frowning face. Both

  • Finding Jesus in The Wanderer

    1863 Words  | 4 Pages

    Finding Jesus in  The Wanderer During the Middle Ages, banishment was a devastating occurrence which plagued many Anglo Saxons. Upon being exiled, men were forced to travel the barren world alone in hopes of finding a new lord under whom they could serve. From this point on, melancholy and loneliness stood as the emotional basis on which every thought and dream was based. Until successfully locating a new mead hall and fellow companions, these loners were forced to look to themselves for comfort

  • Blake: The psychopathic wanderer of London

    1422 Words  | 3 Pages

    “London”, by William Blake, allows us to eavesdrop on the thoughts of a midnight wanderer who stalks the streets of London laying judgment to all he sees. As part of his book of poetry, written in 1789, “London” was included in the section named “Songs of Experience” (as opposed to “Songs of Innocence”). Every poem of the book has an “experienced” and an “innocent” counterpart, save this one. The mind of Blake's wanderer is the mind of a sociopath. The narrator of the piece is disgusted with all around

  • Heathen and Christian Elements in the Wanderer

    1754 Words  | 4 Pages

    Heathen and Christian Elements in the Wanderer The modern word 'weird' bears only a superficial resemblance to its etymological descendent, wyrd.  What now stands for 'strange' and 'queer' only has an archaic connection to its classical meaning of 'Fate'.  During the process of evolution, however, the word went through many phases, especially during the formation of the English language by the Anglo-Saxons. Wyrd appears fairly often in Old English poetry and prose, indicating a

  • Contrasting Outlooks in Dream of the Rood and The Wanderer

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    Differing Outlooks in Dream of the Rood and The Wanderer Outlook defines our perception of reality. The characters in Dream of the Rood and The Wanderer maintain opposed perspectives that greatly influence the way they view their common state of desolation. The dreamer and the Cross in Dream of the Rood embrace a religious ideology that gives them hope, whereas the earth-walker in The Wanderer embraces an existential view that leaves him to suffer his loneliness. The characters' differing outlooks

  • Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Scop's The Wanderer

    910 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Wanderer,” by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon scop, focuses on the themes of personal exile and societal change. The elegy, which came from The Exeter Book, reveals the frustration, isolation, and helplessness a speaker feels in the face of Wyrd, or Fate. He is powerless as his warrior way of life is disappearing on a personal level as well as on a societal level. The times are changing, and he is struggling to adapt. Though he feels painfully alienated and is suffering from survivor’s guilt, he

  • Comparison B/w The Wanderer And The Seafarer

    670 Words  | 2 Pages

    lifestyles. In the Renaissance age, times were not always happy and people chose to pass on stories generation to generation to reveal their feelings and experiences. Poems made a great impact in easing the pain. In the poems, "The Seafarer" and "The Wanderer", the themes of loneliness and exile exist throughout both of the poems. The unknown authors portray the two themes through detail and emotion. "The Seafarer" creates a storyline of a man who is "lost" at sea. There is a major reference to the concept

  • The Anglo-Saxon poems, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Wife’s Lament

    3461 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Anglo-Saxon poems, “The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer,” and “The Wife’s Lament” 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 Exeter Book

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    famous works contained in the Exeter Book include “The Wanderer,” “The Wife’s Lament,” “The Seafarer,” and “Wulf and Eadwacer.” In addition to the 31 major poems, 96 riddles are also included in the collection. The manuscript was likely copied by a single scribe in 975, though “The Wanderer” is though to date back to the Anglo-Saxon tribes’ conversion to Christianity in the sixth century. “The Wife’s Lament” may have pre-dated “The Wanderer” because “it offers none of the typical Christian consolation

  • Exile And Pain In Three Elegiac Poems

    907 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is a great similarity between the three elegiac poems, The Wanderer, The Wife of Lament, and The Seafarer. This similarity is the theme of exile. Exile means separation, or banishment from ones native country, region, or home. During the Anglo Saxon period, exile caused a great amount of pain and grief. The theme is shown to have put great sadness into literature of this time period. The majority of the world's literature from the past contains the theme of exile.     The Wife of Lament is

  • Listening In The Wanderer: The Wanderer

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Wanderer “In our communication-orientated age, listening is more important than ever. This is why, in most companies, effective listeners hold higher positions and are promoted more often than ineffective listeners” (Lucas 48.) Listening is one, if not the most vital and valuable tool that we can utilize. Being a proficient listener is not only beneficial as a student, but also as an individual in the business place and even in personal relations. In this day in age, the lack of mental presence

  • Free College Essays - Enlightenment in Narcissus and Goldmund

    531 Words  | 2 Pages

    Narcissus, a teacher at the cloister who recognizes Goldmund as "a dreamer with the soul of a child," Goldmund acknowledges his suppressed childhood and rediscovers the image of his mother. Leaving the cloister at Narcissus' advice, Goldmund becomes a wanderer of the medieval countryside, seducing the hearts of women, learning the art of sculpting and painting, and recapturing his childhood. Although she is not physically present at any time, Goldmund's mother plays a significant role in his discovery

  • Examples of Authors Who Wrote Elegies

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    what a person does not do. If one makes a mistake, just shake it off and start over again. Two other well known elegy authors, are Burton Raffel, and Charles W. Kennedy. Raffel translated the poem “The Seafarer'; and Kennedy “The Wanderer.'; Raffel used the sea to tell his tale. an example of how Raffel use the sea is “OF smashing surf when I sweated in the cold, Of am anxious watch, purched in the bow,

  • John Locke on Personal Identity

    1503 Words  | 4 Pages

    material body” (Emerson, 1997: 1). An object will remain the same object if it has all the same physical components. The arrangement of the physical particles is irrelevant. Locke used the example of simple and compound substances, involving atoms (Wanderer, 2005: 59). However, a simpler example would be a book on a shelf. If the book remained untouched in perpetuity, then the identity of the book would remain unchanged. But if pages were torn out of the book, Locke’s view would be that it is not the

  • The Wanderer Slavery

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    forty, of those three hundred, were infamous and well worth researching. Three of the most merciless and inhumane slave ships of all time were The Wanderer, The Hannibal, and The Henrietta Marie. Upon ending the slave trade in all British colonies in 1808, the British began pressuring other nations to end their slave trades. Built in 1857, The Wanderer was built as a cargo ship (Grets). Once the ship was built, architects noticed the precise structure of the ship and recommended racing (Grets). The

  • Exploring Isolation: A Study of Literature and Lifestyle

    586 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people often assume that isolation is an idea of the past, but it is still alive and well today. As described in the Anglo-Saxon poem, “The Seafarer,” he was an isolationist, and much like in “The Glass Castle Memoir,” by Jeannette Walls and also in “Man homeless by choice has ‘a great life,” by Edythe Jensen, both of these modern day authors describe their main characters with qualities of an isolationists. While it may not appeal to many, there are a few people that choose to step away from

  • Seafarer Heroic Qualities

    505 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, other various Anglo-Saxon poems like The Wife's Lament or The Seafarer demonstrates heroic qualities in a unique fashion that differ from the traditional epic hero. For example in The Seafarer, the narrator is the hero of the poem. The narrator throughout the poem explains the different tribulations and hardships that he endures throughout his voyages on the open sea. He explains theses hardships stating, “Around my heart. Hunger tore/ At my weary soul. No man sheltered/ On the quiet fairness

  • Religion's Effect on The Wanderer

    753 Words  | 2 Pages

    Religion's Effect on The Wanderer “He who is alone often lives to find favor” (Wanderer), but is he searching needlessly? In short, “The Wanderer” is an Old English poem of a man who is exiled due to the loss of his liege lord. The man then finds himself traveling the sea in search of a new land in which he could remain. His travel is accompanied by a lament from his heart. His heart has little hope, and even that is overpowered by the lament for the land he had just been exiled from. Yet hope

  • Examples Of Alliteration In The Wanderer

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Wanderer fulfills all of the requirements for an Anglo-Saxon Lyric poem by using all of the devices of Anglo-Saxon poem poetry. The Wanderer is an Anglo-Saxon Lyric poem. The word lyric comes from the Greek word Lyre. Stringed musical instrument. Lyric tells of strong, sudden emotion. The first Lyric poems were meant to be sung, poets used to sing them. Now Lyric poetry is meant to be read. Lyric poetry is a short poem that reveals a speaker's feelings, emotions, mode, state of mind, expressions

  • The Seafarer And The Wanderer Comparison

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    main theme in the poems The Seafarer and The Wanderer is exile. The main characters in both of the poems are both experiencing sadness and loneliness due to tragic events that haunt their past. In The Seafarer, the seafarer finds a resolution to his exile through the understanding of eternal life with god; but in The Wanderer, the wanderer thinks he will find resolution by searching the Earth in vain for a lord to save him from his exile. The wanderer is unaware that the world will never fill the