Discussants: John Paul Suyam; DJ Clomera Date: February 9, 2018
Subject: Anglo-American Literature Instructor: John Mark Haban
A BANISHED WIFE’S COMPLAINT
In solitude I sing this lonely song To dwell in the earth-cave underneath the
oak.
About my fate, and truly I can say
Ancient this earth-hall is, and, exiled here,
That of the ills encountered in my youth,
A longing unfulfilled consumes my life.
Ills new and old, most grievous far is this
Dark are the valleys dim and high the hills;
Sorrow of endless exile I endure
Bleak are my cavern-walls o’er grown with
Erstwhile my lord departed from the people
moss,
Over the billows strife! Dawn after dawn
Abode unblessed! Alas, that e’er befell
I tossed in anguish, asking in myself,
My lord’s far faring; the world holds many
“Where lies the land to which my lord has friends
gone?”
Living in love, keeping the marriage bed,
Deeper grew my distress until at length,
While, at day-dawning, all alone
A friendless fugitive, I took my way,
I go in the earth cavern underneath the oak;
Troubled beyond relief, to seek for him.
I sit there through the lingering summer day.
The kindred of that man through cunning
There I beweep my wretched banishment,
thought
The many miseries, sorrows of mind,
Baseless dissension built betwixt us two,
The yearnings vain this life has yielded me,
That hatefully divided we should dwell
Haunting desires, from which I may not rest.
Within the world. Woe untold was mine!
But my lord’s mandate here I make my
Must I, wrongly condemned, forevermore
home.
Endure the hale of him I wholly love?
Few loving ones I have in this land,
He ordered me within the forest grove
Few gracious friends, wherefore is my grief,
That him, most fitting of all men for me, That separation naught,
False-hearted I have found and treacherous; But death alone should bring. How different
now!
With loving smile devising deadly sin;
Our friendship is as it never been.
Often we promised faithfully that love
should last with life
A) Theme: seemingly, the poem shows not just one theme and it varies out with different
themes: sorrow, loneliness, deportation.
B) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
-Old English literature or Anglo-Saxon literature, covers literature written in Old English,
in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has also proven significant for historical study, preserving a chronology of early
English history.
In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives; biblical
translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; Anglo-Saxon chronicles and narrative
history works; laws, wills and other legal works; practical works on grammar, medicine, geography;
and poetry. In all there are over 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, of which about 189 are
considered "major".
C) Values:
D) Elements of poem
a) Structure: free verse
b) Sound pattern
1) Rhyme: (irregular)
2) Meter: (irregular)
3) Word sounds: (irregular)
c) Meaning: Written in the first person, the titular wife begins by saying that her words
come from a "deep sadness", which is a result of her exile. She has never experienced
hardship like this before. She is tortured by her isolation.
She explains that her misery began when her lord left their family and sailed
away, leaving her behind. She was consumed with anxiety about his whereabouts.
Taking action, she decided to undertake a quest to find him, setting out as a lonely and
"friendless wanderer." However, her lord's kinsmen did not want the couple to be
reunited and devised plans to keep them on opposite sides of the "wide world." The
continued separation left the wife heartbroken and longing for her husband.
She shares that ultimately, her lord requested her to live with him in a new country. She moved
to this strange place where she had no friends, which made her sad and lonely. Also, she quickly
discovered that her husband had been plotting behind her back. Beneath his proclamations of
love, "behind [his] smiling face," he was planning to commit mortal crimes. She remembers the
good times of their marriage, when they had sworn to each other that only death could part
them. Sadly, she relays, she realized that she could never feel fondness for this man again. Their
friendship vanished as if it had never existed in the first place.
The Wife continued to face hardship because of her wayward lord and his ongoing schemes. To
stay safe, she went to live in a forest grove in a cave under an oak tree, and that where she is
writing her lament. The cavern is very old and leaves her filled with longing. The landscape
around her is bleak, the valleys are "gloomy," the hills are high, the strongholds are overgrown
with briars, and there is no joy to be found anywhere.
The Wife describes her despair over her estrangement from her husband. She thinks of happy
lovers who lie together in bed on summer days while she lives alone in the earth-cave under the
oak tree. She is unable to quiet her mind or find any relief from her suffering.
She resents the fact that young women are supposed to be serious and courageous, hiding their
heartaches behind a smiling face.
She finishes her lament by invoking her husband again. She does not know if he has conquered
his fate, or if he is exiled in another land, sitting beneath cliffs before the stormy sea, cold in
body and weary in mind. The Wife knows that her husband is also filled with anguish and
constantly reminded of the happy home he has lost. She muses that grief is always present for
those who are separated from a loved one.
E) Listed words that denote feelings evoked by the poem
1) Solitude
2) Ills
3) Grievous
4) Exile
5) Strife
6) Anguish
7) Dissension
8) Woe
9) Love
10) Sorrows
F) Analysis: "A banished wife’s complaint" is one of the most recognizable Anglo-Saxon
elegies. Some scholars actually classify the piece as a Frauenlied, which is the German
term for a woman's song. Either way, it is one of the first and only examples of a female-
authored poem (or a poem written from a female perspective) in early British literature. An
elegy is a lament for someone or something that has been lost, often to death. The Anglo-
Saxon poets commonly employed an elegiac style in their writing, so their verses are often
mournful, haunting, and plangent. "The Wife's Lament" bears many similarities to "The
Seafarer" and "The Wanderer". Most noticeably, each of these poems consist of a solitary
narrator describing exile, the sea, and the threat of hostile forces.
Like in the case of most Anglo-Saxon poems, there are multiple interpretations of
"The Wife's Lament". Some scholars believe that the character of the Wife is a peace-
weaver who was living with a hostile tribe, so she had to sever ties with her family and
travel to a new land, where she feels isolated. It is evident that she misses her husband
profoundly, but it is unclear if he reciprocates her feelings. He may have turned against
her, either of his own volition or due to his family's disapproval. He may love her but his
tribe could have forced him to take action against her. Because of the intimate tone of the
poem, some scholars claim that both husband and wife still love each other and their
despair is mutual. The linguistic structure supports this claim, since the Wife's use of Old
English dual pronouns make the lament feel private and sincere.
Stanley Greenfield, the renowned literary scholar, interprets the poem differently.
He believes that the lord imprisoned his wife in an oak tree after being pressured to do so
by his kinsmen. However, this simple meaning is contradictory to two sections of the poem:
the Wife's description of her grief, and her speculation of her husband's exile. Greenfield
also does not espouse the commonly-held belief that the Wife is expressing pity for her
husband, who is in the same situation as she is. Rather, he believes that the poem expresses
"the Wife's wish (a milder form of curse) that her husband, because of his cruelty to her,
may endure an exile's tribulations so that by direct experience he may come to understand
emotionally the misery and suffering he has caused her." Greenfield supports his theory
through his translation of the poem from the original Old English. In his version, the Wife's
troubles begin when her lord is exiled. She feels uneasy amongst his kinsmen and decides
that she will be safer elsewhere. Upon discovering her plans, the kinsmen plot against her
and convince her husband to ask the lord of the wife's new land to imprison her, and he
does. However, the husband is haunted and disturbed by his actions because he does love
his wife. Meanwhile, the Wife lies in captivity remembering better times, and becoming
jealous of happy lovers. She is sad because she cannot refute the charges against her and
will be forever separated from her husband. Greenfield concludes that the Wife feels no
hatred towards her husband, but "since she must ever be parted from him and bear his
wrath, she wishes that he might know the full extent of her undeserved afflictions."
Scholar Karl P. Wentersdorf entertains other interpretations of the poem, in which
some scholars speculate that the Wife is referring to multiple husbands, and not just one.
However, Wentersdorf concludes that she is indeed only referring to one man. Regarding
her subterranean dwelling, he writes, "an Anglo-Saxon audience listening to The Wife's
Lament would have envisaged the narrator of the poem as dwelling secretly in an ancient
Pagan sanctuary that included a cave opening up into other caves, located at the foot or in
the side of a cliff or hill, in a wooded area with a great oak on or near the top of the cliff or
hill." These sanctuaries often served as asylums during the Anglo-Saxons' time.
Wentersdorf offers his own summary of the poem's narrative. He believes that the Wife is
married to a man of high rank, probably a foreigner and/or a peacemaker. When her
husband left, most likely to go on a dangerous military trip, his kinsmen schemed against
the couple. Wentersdorf has a more forgiving view of the husband and interprets the lord's
scheming to be against his own kinsmen, not his wife. Instead, Wenstersdorf claims that the
lord sends his wife away to keep her safe, and they both suffer profound emotional pain as
a result of their unresolved separation.
G) Other works of the Anglo-Saxon poems:
