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The-Wanderer-tutorial

Literatura Inglesa I: Ejes de la Literatura Medieval y Renacentista (UNED)

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Anglo-Saxon Elegies: The Wanderer

The Exeter Book

- an anthology compiled towards the end of the 10th Century.

- The most varied collection of poetry that survives from Anglo-Saxon times.
- The Exeter Book contains one sixth of extant Anglo-Saxon literature. Most of
A-S literature is contained in just1 four manuscripts2.
- The manuscript was given to Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the first bishop3 of
Exeter, who died in 1072.
- Contains most of the best surviving Anglo-Saxon elegies including
The Wife’s Lament,
The Wanderer4,
The Seafarer5,
The Husband’s Message and
The Ruins.

Preserving the Poem

Manuscript production by scribes – almost always clerics6 – using calf-skin7

(‘vellum’) or other hides8 bound9 between boards10 – often beech wood (Fagus) –
source of German buch or ‘book’ (i.e. a beech-bound-thing);

Scribes as ‘filters’ of what survives (copying errors, censorship of pagan or

erotic texts, tastes in literature).

 loss of manuscripts due to11 deliberate destruction (esp. 1536, the ‘Dissolution
of the Monasteries’ and burning of their libraries12),
 texts sold on Continent to wrap13 meat!
 accidental damage and fire.
 human contact (Readers’ skin14 oils, acidic sweat15, bacteria and accidental
damage kill books – the greatest literature is ‘read to death’.).
1 just – (in this case) only
2 The dunius Manuscript (a.k.a. The Cædmon Manuscript), The Exeter Book, The Vercelli Book and The Nowell Codex
(a.k.a. The Beowulf Manuscript)
3 bishop – head of a diocese
4 wanderer – migrant, nomad
5 seafarer – mariner, seaman
6 cleric – churchman
7 calf-skin – the hide of a young cow
8 hide – skin (= cutaneous organ), leather
9 to bind (bind-bound-bound) – fasten, tie together
10 board – flat piece of wood
11 due to – because of
12 library – collection of books
13 to wrap – envelop, cover
14 skin (adj.) – cutaneous
15 sweat /swet/ – perspiration

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Wounded16 Words

The manuscript survived because the Exeter Cathedral library resided in a building
which would escape the dangers of fire and storm, civil war and two world wars.

Even so, the ravages17 of time inflicted upon this unique text in nearly18 a
thousand years can best be appreciated by George Phillip Krapp and Elliott Van
Kirk Dobbie’s editorial description of the damage it sustained:

“The manuscript, though well preserved on the whole, has suffered severe
damage in several places. The fact that fol. 8a, the first page preserved of the
original manuscript, has been scored over19 with knife strokes20 suggests that
at one time in its history the book was used as a cutting board 21. Near the
outer margin of this folio, where two very deep strokes come together, a
triangular piece has been torn out22 of the parchment23, apparently
containing the final n of eadga[n], Christ 20. A vessel24 containing liquid,
perhaps a beer mug25, has made a circular stain near the center of fol. 8a.
The liquid has been spilled26 over27 a large portion of this page, and has gone
through the next two folios also, causing a brown stain28 on these folios and
making the text in some places very difficult to read. This severe damage which
fol. 8a has suffered indicates that the lost folio at the beginning of the
manuscript was detached29 from the rest of the book at a very early date, and
that from that time on, the book was without a binding30 at least until after
folios 1 to 7 were added at the beginning. [. . .] . . . by far31 the greatest damage
to the manuscript has been done on the last fourteen folios, where a long
diagonal burn has destroyed much of that text.”

16 wounded – injured (in this case) damaged

17 ravages – destruction
18 nearly – almost, just under
19 to score over – cut
20 stroke – mark
21 cutting board – surface on which to cut meat, vegetables, etc.
22 to tear out (tear-tore-torn) – remove, extract
23 parchment – manuscript written on animal skins
24 vessel – (in this case) container, cup
25 mug – big cup with a handle
26 to be spilled – fall accidentally
27 over – (in this case) on
28 stain – permanent mark
29 to detach – separate
30 binding – cover
31 by far – unquestionably

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What Kinds of ‘Literature’ are Written

When Books are Expensive to Produce?

- Religious texts
- Chronicles
- Charters, court records32, wills33, proclamations
- Recipes, cures, and charms34
- Battle poems and epics: the poet’s social role as memoirist, assignor of praise35
to the virtuous and blame36 to the wicked37, constructor of ‘fame’ or reputation
in current and future worlds.
- Laments (‘elegies’): the poet’s social role as memoirist, remembering valuable
things lost in time, pain of memory as a healthy tonic to forestall38 unhealthy
exuberance (poet as doctor—Aristotle on catharsis and satire as social ‘cure’ of
folly39 and crime40).

Why do we focus so much attention on the rarest types?

- Artistic invention vs. mere record-keeping.

- Linguistic variety and attention to form as an expression of content41.
- Creation of dramatic personae in addition to mere historical persons, authorial
voice and implied audience.
- Experiments with ‘voice’ including irony, humour, and dramatic prosopopoeia
(= face-making, personification [= the attribution of human qualities to inanimate
objects]) or impersonation (another of the “crimes of fiction writing” with
forgery42).

Influence on later writers

- the traditional writer’s ‘school’ sequence of translation, imitation of the model
form on new topics43, fusion with other models, and innovation of forms. (e.g.
Tolkien, Seamus Heaney translates Beowulf in 2000)

32 court records – legal documents

33 will (n.) – testament
34 charm – spell, incantation
35 praise – admiration
36 blame – accusations
37 the wicked – evil people, malignant people
38 to forestall – pre-empt, prevent
39 folly – foolishness, stupidity, idiocy
40 crime – illegal acts
41 content – subject matter, theme
42 forgery – falsification
43 topic – (false friend) theme

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What is an Elegy?

Elegy: poem of serious reflection, a lament for the dead, a mournful44 poem.
- An elegy laments the loss or passing of beloved persons, places, or things.

Elegies are common in world literature, which tells us something about

- the human condition and
- poetry’s function independent of cultural difference.

In Anglo-Saxon, elegy is more of a ‘mode’ or manner of writing that can produce

poems of many types, all using the basic four-stress, oral-formulaic line.

The poet’s job as keeper of the community’s collective memory produced

frequent occasions on which the dead and the vanished45 must be recalled46 in
sadness.

Wisdom Poetry

Notice that The Wanderer also incorporates elements of wisdom47 poetry.

- poetry that contains some sort of moral or lesson.

In The Wanderer the wise man must not:

- be hasty48 in speech,
- be rash49 or fickle50 in battle,
- be nervous, greedy51 or boastful52.

He must accept
- that riches fade53
- buildings fall
- lords die and their followers die or are dispersed.

This takes us back to the concept of ‘the loaned life’ we saw in Beowulf.
Remember: “Cattle54 die, family and friends die, you die
The one thing that does not die is reputation God.”

44 mournful – sad, melancholy

45 vanished – disappeared
46 to recall – remember
47 wisdom – sagacity, understanding that comes from experience
48 hasty – impetuous, impulse, imprudent
49 rash – precipitous , impetuous, impulsive
50 fickle – capricious
51 greedy – avaricious
52 boastful – self-satisfied, excessively proud
53 to fade – gradually disappear
54 cattle – livestock, cows

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Elegy vs. Epic

The elegy can be seen as a partial antidote to the excesses of epic.

- The epic remembers past glories of tribal heroes.
- Elegies tend to mourn55 their death.

In the epic humanity conquers nature.

In elegy we are its powerless and passive victims.
- nature is a wholly56 hostile force from the sea and winter to the beasts of battle
and the seabirds.
- winter, hail57 and night are the agents of Wyrd58.

Remember what we saw in Beowulf about the rigours59 of winter (starvation60,

cannibalism, etc.)

Incidentally, Vivian Salmon believes that the poet of The Wanderer was influenced
by Old Icelandic literature and heathen61 folklore as regards62 the idea of the
external soul.
- Icelandic writers believed that “the soul was... a separate entity enclosed by63 a
wall of flesh64” and that it could take on an animal shape65 (when liberated by
death).

This explanation supports the interpretation that the seabirds are the souls of the
Wanderer’s fallen comrades.

Notice the pathetic fallacy: the weather reflects the Wanderer’s mental state.

The epic is a social mode; elegy an individual testimony.

55 to mourn – lament, grieve for

56 wholly – entirely
57 hail – frozen rain
58 Wyrd – A-S destiny
59 rigours – severity
60 starvation – famine, hunger
61 heathen – pagan
62 as regards – in relation to
63 enclosed by – surrounded by, trapped in, imprisoned in
64 a wall of flesh – the physical body
65 shape – form

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The Wanderer

The Title

Remember that the title was added in modern times.

Tolkien suggested alternative titles:
‘An Exile’,
‘Alone the Banished66 Man’, and
“The Exile’s Lament”
- however, the poem is now universally known as The Wanderer.

It is an attempt67 to find meaning in suffering.

This elegy is about a warrior whose lord has been killed in battle.
- The warrior then wanders around looking for a new lord.
- Social bonds are broken and the individual is ‘orphaned’.

The poem is at the same time nostalgic for and a questioning of the materialistic
life that the wanderer had led68 until now.

Composition

Because of the curious unchanging nature of Anglo-Saxon, we don’t know when

The Wanderer was composed: estimates vary from late 5th Century to late 10th
Century!
- the transitional nature of the religious values suggests an early date.
- the inclusion of a number of Norse-influenced words, such as the compound
hrimceald [line 4] (= ‘ice-cold’, from the Old Norse word hrimkaldr), ferð [l. 54]
(= crowd) and hrið [l. 102] has encouraged69 others to date the poem to the late
9th or early 10th Century.

Some words suggest an Anglian influence, if not origin, though most of the poem
is spelt in West Saxon.

66 banished – exiled
67 attempt – effort
68 to lead (lea-led-led) – (in this case) live
69 to encourage – cause, provoke

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How Many Voices?

The Wanderer often experiences the Grace of God despite his hardships70.
Conclusion:
- the world’s wealth71 is transitory and
- faith in God is the only source of72 security.

It has been argued that the admonition is a later addition, as

- it lies73 at the end of a poem that is otherwise solely secular in its concerns74.
- it has a different alliterative structure, too:

Swa cwæð snottor on mode, // gesæt him sundor æt rune. XAX//AAX

Til biþ se þe his treowe gehealdeþ, // ne sceal næfre his torn to rycene XAX//XAX
beorn of his breostum acyþan, // nemþe he ær þa bote cunne, AAX//XAX
eorl mid elne gefremman. // Wel bið þam þe him are seceð, AAX//XAX
frofre to Fæder on heofonum, // þær us eal seo fæstnung stondeð. AAA//XAX

Without these lines the Maker of Men is cast in75 the role of a Destroyer as
inexorable as Wyrd76 itself.

Possibly, the two halves are spoken by different characters:

- the narrator of the “wise man’s speech”, and
- the ‘wise man’, presumably the ‘Wanderer’ himself.

The narrator advises us to77 listen to the voice of the Wanderer,

whose recollections78 of lost lords, ladies, and courtly settings79, establishes the
need for
- self-restraint,
- endurance80, and
- an appreciation for the fleeting81 nature of all earthly things.

Some critics have argued Wanderer was the product of three poems’ fusion, but
contemporary readers tend to reject82 this, arguing that Anglo-Saxon poetic
productions need not satisfy modern standards for aesthetic unity.

70 hardships – suffering
71 wealth – riches, material goods
72 source of – place to find
73 to lie (lie-lay-lain) – be (situated)
74 concerns – focus
75 to be cast in – be given
76 Wyrd – Anglo-Saxon destiny
77 advises us to – recommends that we should
78 recollections – memories
79 courtly settings – noble contexts
80 endurance – fortitude, patience
81 fleeting – transient, ephemeral
82 to reject – not accept

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Symbolism

Youth is associated with heat, light, fire

Old age is associated with darkness, cold, snow, isolation and uncertainty.
- Old age is a type of exile.
- Exiles and the old have a unique understanding of the transience83 of life.

This division leads to84 two distinct views of life:

- The (young) warrior takes comfort from his place within Ealde Riht85 and his
security is guaranteed by his liege-lord. However, the liege-lord eventually86 dies
and the comitatus87 disbands88.
- This leads to suffering, which is the path to truth; faith in the (heavenly) Lord
provides permanent security.

The sea represents emptiness, winter violence, loneliness, severance and exile.
- In contrast to Beowulf, the sea is here seen as a separator.

It is cold and empty – an embodiment89 of the failure of human relationships,

loneliness, severance and exile.

Another motif is ‘the Beasts of Battle’ – the eagle, the raven90 and the wolf + in
this case, the sad-faced man (= the Wanderer himself).
- the ‘beasts of battle’ motif connects The Wanderer to Beowulf (ll. 3024-27) and
back to Woden whose sacred animals were the wolf and the raven.

83 transience – impermanence, brevity

84 to lead to (lead-led-led) – result in, produce
85 Ealde Riht – the Comitatus code
86 eventually – (false friend) in the end
87 comitatus – war band, group of warriors
88 to disband – disperse, separate
89 embodiment – incarnation, representation
90 raven – (Corvus corax) type of crow

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La Vie N’est Pas un Long Fleuve Tranquille

siþ91-motif (= the journey as an experience – life is a journey/voyage) connects The

Wanderer to A-S poem The Seafarer (and many other works of literature from
Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Hemingway’s The Old Man and
the Sea).

Like The Wanderer, The Seafarer is divided into two main parts.
- One refers to the life of the speaker, and the other refers to life in general.
- the second part of both poems contain elements of wisdom literature as well as
elegy.

The poem uses the ubi sunt?92 formula

- the ubi sunt? formula connects The Wanderer to The Seafarer and The Ruin.
- the exile theme connects The Wanderer to The Wife’s Lament and The Husband’s
Message.
- the ruin theme connects The Wanderer to The A-S elegy The Ruin.

Notice, too, the Horatian emphasis on Eheu fugaces (= everything is destined to

decay) in The Wanderer
- The decay of the world of men as well as the search for bliss and joy in God are
also themes of The Seafarer.

The Seafarer, The Husband’s Message, The Ruin and The Wanderer all appear in
The Exeter Book.

There is also the motif of ‘the journey of life’ and ‘learning through suffering’
- echoing Aeschylus in Agamemnon, “Wisdom comes through suffering”.
- the journey is responsible for a visible transformation in the mind of the character
making the journey.

Ultimately93, The Wanderer (and The Seafarer) echo Boethius in

- the descriptions of a decaying94 world and the hardships of human life
- the ideas (from Consolation of Philosophy, Book 2) that good fortune is
necessarily fleeting95 and inconstant and that fame, glory, pleasure and power are
not the source of true happiness.
- the confidence that God will lead96 everyone to a good end.

91 ‘seeth’ /si:θ/ = (A-S) journey

92 Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt – Where are the ones who came before us?, hwær cwom (= Where have they gone?) in A-S
93 ultimately – (false friend) in the final analysis
94 decaying – (false friend) decomposing, declining, putrid
95 fleeting – short-lived, transient, ephemeral
96 to lead (lead-led-led) – guide

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Elegy vs. Epic: Compare & Contrast The Wanderer and Beowulf

Tolkien said that Beowulf was a ‘heroic-elegiac poem’ rather than an ‘epic poem’.

Both poems refer to wraeccan (= outcasts97) from whence98 we get the Modern
English words ‘wretch’99 and ‘wretched’100.

The importance of belonging

The atmosphere in the elegies can be compared to

- the elegy of the last survivor of the people who buried101 the dragon’s treasure
Beowulf 2247-66 and
- to that of Hrethel’s lament in Beowulf 2444-62 (when Haethcyn /Hath’kin/ kills
Herebeald /Her ’ra bay ald/).

The Anglo-Saxon elegies are studies in the expression of

 atmosphere,
 emotions and
 the principles of behaviour102
– the evocation of an elegiac mood103.
The characters and the backgrounds104 are little more than sketched in, with no
more substance than is necessary for the immediate situation.

The elegies – like Beowulf and the other Old English poems we have – reflect the
Anglo-Saxon view of time in which the present is simply the point at which the
past and the future touch.

As we saw last week, one of the characteristics of Beowulf is that the past and the
future are presented at the same time as the present, often overwhelming105 it.

In these elegies the memory of past dominates in the face of future uncertainties.
- the wise person foresees106 the foreseeable and accepts the unforeseeable with
stoic dignity.

97 outcast – pariah
98 from whence – from which term
99 wretch (n.) – unfortunate person
100 wretched (adj.) – very unhappy
101 to bury – inter, put sth. underground
102 behaviour – conduct
103 mood – atmosphere, frame of mind, emotional state
104 background – back story, narrative context
105 to overwhelm – dominate, eclipse
106 to foresee (-see/-swa/-seen) – predict, anticipate

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Like the biblical psalmist, the Anglo-Saxon bards tended to generalize the
consequences of Time’s corrosive effect on all human ambitions, turning the poems
into fierce, sad condemnations of the very structures whose glories are
celebrated in the epic war songs: rings, horses, falcons107, swords, warriors,
ladies, and the great halls108 of kings.

The elegy confronts the epic with the inevitable extinction of its subjects, listing
them in acts of repeated, balanced parallelism similar to the syntax with which
both poems like to construct their sentences.

At the same time The Wanderer confronts decline and stasis (a common theme of
literature cf. Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn109):
- to be alive is to decline
- the only stability can be found in God
- there is perhaps the suggestion that the Wanderer has lost his lord, and found his
Lord.
But this eternal stability – stasis – is by definition not to be alive.
- notice all the references to binding110, fastening.

107 falcon – type of hawk

108 great hall – mead-hall, ‘palace’
109 urn – container for the ashes of a cremated person
110 binding – fastening, tying up

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Anglo-Saxon Syntax and Usage

The translation does a remarkable job of transmitting, in Modern English, the

convoluted111, puzzling112, and surprising turns of the Anglo-Saxon poet’s
sentences.
Each one is grammatically complete, if one allows for113 ellipsis (= omission of
words one can assume114 from context), but most are masterpieces of suspended
development.

The poet often builds them up using a set of parallel subject-noun phrases, either
following or preceding the verb, which may act on some similarly suspended
object-nouns that coil sinuously among115 the poem’s half-lines.

More Kenningar

The nouns, themselves, often are puzzles116, metaphors for the thing itself in a
short phrase called... Kenningar.

Those stacked117 nouns become richly inscribed with these associative textures
rather like118 the miniature scenes, faces, and symbols worked into Anglo-Saxon
decorative arts.

The larger119 form of the poem grows by accumulation of many smaller forms
which, in the form of Kenningar, flash before our eyes while we wait for the
sentence to complete its utterance120.

It is interesting to view the Kenningar as mini-riddles121; remember that much of

the Exeter Book was made up of122 riddles.

111 convoluted –
112 puzzling – perplexing
113 to allow for – accept, admit
114 to assume – (false friend) infer, imagine
115 to coil among – meander through
116 puzzle – enigma, riddle
117 stacked – clustered, accumulated
118 rather like – somewhat similar to
119 larger – bigger, overall
120 utterance – message
121 riddle – puzzle, enigma
122 to be made up of – consisted of, be composed of

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The War Band’s Customs (Comitatus revisited)

The Wanderer alludes familiarly to numerous aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture as

known to the warrior elite who ruled123 and defended it.

The ‘leige lord’ stands124 at the top of the hierarchy, taking oaths125 and dispensing
treasure, serving all of the socially-constituting functions we assign to
employers, priests126, presidents, teachers, judges, bankers, and generals.

The warrior serves the warlord eagerly127 because there is no other route of
advancement, no other way to be, in the culture.

The alternative to this association, which The Wanderer describes, is the lonely life
of the ‘viking’, those who have taken ship for foreign places, hoping to survive by
plunder128 in solitary struggle129 with no land-based community to which they may
return.
- the true loners who had no kin130 and no ‘gold friend’ to shelter131 them.

123 to rule – govern, dominate

124 to stand (stand-stood-stood) – be
125 oath – vow/promise of loyalty
126 priest – churchman, religious leader
127 eagerly – enthusiastically
128 plunder – pillaging
129 struggle – conflict
130 kin – family and relations
131 to shelter – protect, offer refuge to

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Taciturnity
According to Ellis Davidson one of the goals of the Germanic warrior was
‘forgetfulness of self’
- drinking and battle were the two key ways of achieving132 this.
Not for nothing these were the two activities undertaken133 in Valhalla.
Such warriors apparently were extremely wary of134 loose talk135 – the poem’s
repeated praise of136 taciturnity are echoed in other Anglo-Saxon works
- perhaps because the war band’s social relations were constructed in the language
of deadly serious promises.
There is potential irony in a poem that goes on and on about137 the Wanderer’s
feelings and yet praises138 taciturnity.
 How does the poet, a necessarily ‘open-mouthed’139 man, fit into140 this
culture’s reigning rule of silence?
 Does the poet have a special exemption from the rule, and if so, what is that
exemption’s price?
The ‘gift-giving’ (101) was a formal ceremony repeated many times as a stage in141
forming the associative link begun by the warrior’s oath125.
The laying142 of a kneeling143 warrior’s hands and head upon the knee144 of a
seated lord is nearly145 the same gesture used in the Norman-French-influenced
medieval custom of homage146 during later eras.
It emphasizes the lord’s ‘fatherly’ relation to the warrior, his ‘battle-son’, in a
pseudo-kinship147 nearly as powerful as blood relationship148.
The treasure referred to in the poem is amply represented in the artefacts
discovered at the famous ship-burial149 at Sutton Hoo, England.

132 to achieve – attain, obtain, get

133 to undertake (-take/-took/-taken) – perform, enjoy
134 to be wary of – be cautious of, be suspicious of
135 loose talk – gossip, rumours, chatter
136 praise of – expression of admiration for
137 to go on and on about (go-went-gone) – talk incessantly about
138 to praise – express admiration for
139 open-mouthed – (in this case) talkative
140 to fit into – integrate into
141 a stage in – part of the process of
142 laying – placing, putting
143 kneeling – on his knees, genuflecting
144 knee – articulation in the middle of sb’s leg
145 nearly – almost, practically
146 homage – respect, adulation
147 kinship – family connection, blood tie
148 blood relationship – consanguinity
149 ship-burial – placing a cadaver underground in a ship

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The worst thing a thegn150 could do was to leave the battlefield alive after his lord
had been killed. The Battle of Maldon tells us that he would regret151 it forever.

150 thegn – thane, warrior

151 to regret – feel sorry about, feel remorse about

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Parallel Texts
Consider Hrothgar’s reward given to Beowulf for the destruction of Grendel:
“Then the son of Healfdene gave Beowulf a golden standard152 to reward his
victory—a decorated battle banner—a helmet and mail-shirt: many saw the
glorious costly sword borne before the warrior. Beowulf drank of the cup in the
mead-hall. He had no need to be ashamed [litotes!] before fighting men of those
rich gifts. I have not heard of many men [litotes!] who gave four precious, gold-
adorned things to another on the ale-bench in a more friendly way. The rim around
the helmet’s crown had a head-protection, wound of wire, so that no battle-hard
sharp sword might badly hurt him when the shield-warrior should go against his
foe. Then the people’s protector commanded eight horses with golden bridles to be
led into the hall, within the walls. The saddle of one of them stood shining with
hand-ornaments, adorned with jewels: that had been the war-seat of the high king
when the son of Healfdene would join sword-play: never did the warfare of the
wide-known one fail when men died in battle.”
Compare The Wanderer’s view of a similar scene (= Ubi sunt?):
“Where has the horse gone? Where the young warrior? Where is the giver of
treasure? What has become of the feasting seats153? Where are the joys of the hall?
Alas154, the bright cup! Alas, the mailed155 warrior! Alas, the prince’s glory! How
that time has gone, vanished beneath night’s cover, just as if it never had been! The
wall, wondrous high, decorated with snake-likenesses, stands now over traces of
the beloved company. The ash-spears’ might has borne the earls away—weapons
greedy for slaughter, Fate the mighty; and storms beat on the stone walls, snow,
the herald of winter, falling thick binds the earth when darkness comes and the
night-shadow falls, sends harsh hailstones from the north in hatred of men. All
earth’s kingdom is wretched, the world beneath the skies is changed by the work of
the fates. Here wealth is fleeting, here friend is fleeting, here man is fleeting, here
woman is fleeting—all this earthly habitation shall be emptied.” (101-2)
In The Two Towers – Part II of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn sings a
song about the kingdom of Rohan (which is based upon Anglo-Saxon England)
that begins,
Where now the horse and the rider?
Where is the horn156 that was blowing157?
Where is the helm158 and the hauberk159,
and the bright hair flowing...

152 standard – flag, banner

153 feasting seat – banqueting bench
154 alas! – how sad!
155 mailed – wearing chainmail (= a protective shirt)
156 horn – type of simple trumpet
157 to blow (blow-blew-blown) – play (a trumpet, etc.)
158 helm – (in this case) helmet, protective headgear
159 hauberk – coat of mail

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Relationship between Beowulf & The Wanderer

Characteristics of A-S literature and culture:

 Ealde Riht/Comitatus – also found in the elegies (and also questioned; the
Wanderer has been faithful to his lord until he died of old age yet he has
been left ‘orphaned’)
 A-S alliteration – also found in the elegies
 Kenningar – also found in the elegies (‘gold-friend’, etc.)
 litotes – also found in The Wanderer, ll. 55-56)
 Beot (boast-making160) – mentioned in The Wanderer l. 70, 71
 Wyrd – mentioned in The Wanderer, ll. 5, 16, 101
 Wraeccas – the Wanderer is a type of outcast161 (l. 24, 41)
 The Mead hall – also referred to as a ‘wine hall’(l. 28)
 Litotes – The Wanderer l. 13, 55.

Characteristics of elegies:

 elegy – elegy of the last survivor (Beowulf ll. 2247-66) and the father’s
lament (Beowulf ll.2444-62)
 Ubi sunt? – The Wanderer ll. 93-94 seems to answer Beowulf ll. 1019-1033.

Tolkien described Beowulf as a heroic-elegiac poem

INTERTEXTUALITY: Notice how the Wanderer, like Caliban, “cries to dream

again”
The rich happiness of a man’s dreams makes his solitude even more miserable.
- How does the world of our dreams relate to the ‘real’ world?
- How is nature perceived?

Bibliography

The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature by Michael Godden and Michael
Lapidge (Cambridge, 1990)
Companion to British Poetry before 1600 by Michelle M. Sauer (Facts on File, 2008)

INTERNET
- The Wanderer (Shmoop)
- The Exeter Book (GradeSaver)

160 boast-making – formal bragging

161 outcast – pariah

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