Exile was something people feared during Anglo-Saxon times and something people dread today. Exile is being separated from one’s ordinary living, such as their home or family. Exile can be created by several different conditions; for example, one could experience exile because they were forced to flee for safety or one could have been banished. Exile can cause a variety of emotions such as: fear, anxiety and loneliness. Exile could also bring to light new values and unfamiliar lifestyles in which develop significant life lessons. The main characters of the three Anglo-Saxon poems, “The Seafarer,” “The Wanderer,” and “The Wife’s Lament,” experienced some type of exile that shaped their perspectives on life.
In the Anglo-Saxon poem “The Seafarer,” an Anglo-Saxon man is taken away from his home by the forceful, sweeping sea. The man’s home was the mead-hall, where he and other warriors lived and followed under a lord or king. When the man was absent from his home, he at first felt much anxiety and pain. Although this man was in exile
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The following line, “But there isn’t a man on earth so proud,”(ln. 39) displays to the readers how he sincerely loved the independence and freedom he obtained from his exile, the sea. This Anglo-Saxon man is an example of someone who experienced an exile, which brought a brand new way of life to the horizon. The man realized as long as one has faith and prays to the dear Lord, then man will be on his way. A man may run into death while he is in exile, but death is not caused but exile, but instead provoked by the Lord because no man can prevent death. The Anglo-Saxon warrior in “The Seafarer” concluded no one should panic from exile because death is not something anyone can fend off. Instead, one should view separation from home as a new source of freedom and create it into an adventure. Along with never losing faith in
Anglo-Saxon women are objects who are gifts to generate a fragile peace. Bloody combat between men attempting to earn fame embodies the Anglo-Saxon era. But does history include women? No, in fact, most women in the epic poem Beowulf are unworthy of even a name. Men trap women as objects; those who rebel become infamous monsters in society’s eyes. Because Anglo-Saxon men view women as objects, they are unable to control any aspect of their lives--no matter if she is royalty or the lowest of all mothers.
Throughout various works of world literature, respect is a major concern amongst the characters. This manifests itself in how the relationships between characters in the work are characterized. Sometimes lack of proper respect can be an auxiliary cause for conflict, while in other cases it can be the root of it. In Japanese culture, respect is considered very important in the relationships between different people; for example, it is customary to bow to one's elders and respect those of superior knowledge and ability. Failure to show such respect is taken offensively and considered extremely disrespectful. This important concept of disrespect is quite prevalent in both The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea and Wonderful Fool, where the relationship characterization of the two main characters reflect this idea through the conflicts. In the former, Ryuji shows disrespect by patronizing Noboru, which causes conflict; in the latter, Gaston's lack of response to the gangster Endo's disrespect is an auxiliary cause to the main conflict between them.
The poem The Seafarer which belongs to the sea elegies found in the Exter Book and, can be read as an allegorial voyage poem, such allegories of journeys were richly explored in later religious poems. [L. Sikorska: 2005, p. 25] This work is divided into two parts. In the first one we can notice the story of seafarer who describes hardships of life on the sea, whereas in the second one we can find some christian elements. He approves of honest living and higher values as friendship and love.
The epic poem, Beowulf, a work of fiction, offers more insight into Ancient Anglo-Saxon English culture than the work of Bede, who wrote, A History of the English Church and People. The epic poem Beowulf gives an enhanced illustration and clearer understanding of the culture of the Ancient Anglo-Saxon’s. The epic poem gives the audience a picture of what the Ancient Anglo-Saxon English valued; seafaring, warriors, heroes, and paganism.
Anglo Saxon’s history is well known for their loyalty, courage and bravery. Beowulf our protagonist is symbolized as a hero, who represents the Anglo Saxons at the time. Beowulf earns his fame and respect through battling creatures nobody else would want to face. These creatures symbolize the evil that lurks beyond the dark. Beowulf’s intense battle with these creatures’ symbolizes the epic battle of good versus evil. In the end good triumphs over evil but one cannot avoid death. Beowulf’s death can be symbolized as the death of the Anglo Saxons. Beowulf’s battle through the poem reflects the kind of culture that the Anglo Saxons had. The youth of a warrior to his maturity then the last fight which results in death. Beowulf wanted to be remembered and be told in stories that are passed on from generation to generation after his death. These story tellers relate to the Anglo Saxons time when they told stories about their great heroes.
Beowulf is the conventional title of an Old English epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature due to the fact that it is the oldest surviving epic poem of Old English and also the earliest vernacular English literature. Tragedy and epic have been much discussed as separate genres, but critics have not hesitated to designate certain characters and events in epics as tragic. For the most part, they have assumed or asserted an identity between epic and dramatic tragedy. Even in The Odyssey, Penelope and Telemachus suffer enough to rouse their deep passions and to force them like the tragic sufferer to consider their own predicaments in the world they live in. C.L. Wrenn wrote on Beowulf, “A Germanic hero is a tragic hero, who shows his highest greatness not alone in winning glory by victory, but rather by finding his supremely noble qualities especially in the moment of death in battle” (Wrenn 91). Beowulfs hubris, the representation of wealth as a profiling characteristic for the villages, and Beowulf’s ability to find his might in his moment of “death,” all show the very nature of the poem which defines it as not only an epic poem, but also a tragic one.
To conclude, there are two main opposing representations and aspects of home presented in this poem, from what is seen as the "norm", the narrators life on land, to the "favoured", the narrators life at sea. Home is irrevocably linked to lifestyle and should not just be where the heart is,(though there is a sense that our "Heart's fulfilment" is important) but should more importantly be a place where we can live a life that will bring us towards heaven, which the poem portrays as our eternal home. The Seafarer is a poem which urges us to carefully "consider where we possess our home, and then think how we com thither."
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.
The narrative of each of these texts demonstrate how gender is presented as a main issue in Old and Middle English, although femininity is not necessarily viewed as a weakness. In The Wife’s Lament, the wife expresses her sorrow regarding ‘the misery of exile’ after becoming
The book “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex” by Nathaniel Philbrick is tragic, eyes widening and heart wrenching where all the morals and ethics are gravely subjected to situation and questioned when it comes to survival. What they must do for survival? How man love their lives and no matter what strikes upon them, holler from behind, ambush their morale, yet they want to keep going just for the sake of living. The book is epitome of such a situation that encounters survival over morality. However, in the thrust of knowledge and oceans of secrets locked inside the chambers of this world, there is a heavy price men have to pay in the ordeal of yearning for knowledge.
"The Wanderer." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. 68-70.
"Anglo-Saxon" is the term used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain during the fifth century, and their creation of the English nation. This is why in terms of literary topics, the genre of literature belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period accentuated the concept of heroism. Anglo-Saxon literature did not inaugurate with books, but rather with spoken verse and songs or poems, such as epic poems. The purpose of these forms of literature was to pass along tribal history and morals to the majority of a population full of illiteracy. Warriors would gather in mead halls where they would recite poems for hours as a form of entertainment. The writing style of these poems were very catchy and memorable, so they could be easily recalled and thus retold. Expressed by ...
Non-conformity in The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, Medea, and The Stranger
What does it mean to be wise? Webster's Dictionary defines the word "wise" as being "marked by deep understanding, keen discerment". Through the telling of the ancient Mariner's tale, the Wedding-Guest became sadder and wiser. He became sad in that he identified himself with the shallow and self-absorbed mariner. However, the mariner changed his ways. The Wedding-Guest became wise through realizing that he himself needed to alter his ways.