The Wanderer and The Wife’s Lament: Exploring Anglo-Saxon Poetry
The Wanderer
The Manuscript
The unique text of The Wanderer is found in the Exeter Book, one of the four great codices of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It has remained in the Chapter Library at Exeter since it was presented to the Chapter by Bishop Leofric in the eleventh century. The script of the Exeter Book has been dated between 970 and 990, likely earlier in that period, although there are indications that the poem might have been written in the first half of the tenth century. The manuscript is written in the West-Saxon dialect, characteristic of Old English poetry. The beginning and the last fourteen folios are badly damaged, probably by a burn. Besides, it is probable that a considerable number of gatherings are missing. It seems likely that the Exeter Book was compiled over a period of years.
The Wanderer and Heroic Tradition
The Wanderer is an aristocratic poem, similar in feeling and sentiment to Beowulf and even to The Battle of Maldon. It presents a critique of the essential weakness of the society it portrays. In Old English poetry, there is generally no condemnation of warfare or the warrior’s life. This is partly due to the dominance of the heroic poetic tradition. Anyone wishing to express ideas in poetic form would likely use this tradition. Anglo-Saxon society was also organized for war. The Wanderer, like Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, reflects a Christian’s acceptance of the Germanic aristocratic way of life. However, the poem’s dominant motif is not suffering but transience.
To emphasize the transitory character of life and worldly things, the poet has the anhoga (“solitary man”) evoke the joys of life in the comitatus as definitively past. The passing of these joys has caused him sorrow, which, together with loneliness, forms the theme of the poem’s first movement. In the second movement, the anhoga explains how he became wise. The first stage in his development was when his youthful sense of loss and sorrow gave way, through reflection, to an understanding of the transitory nature of everything in this world.
Patience fosters reflection, reflection brings understanding of the universal situation, understanding induces humility as humans face their Creator’s power, and humility brings consolation in the face of inescapable destiny.
The heroic world is the anhoga’s world, and it is not so much the heroic way of life he assesses in light of his understanding of the human condition as the values of that world. The wisdom the anhoga gains is the wisdom of the counsels of the Christian life. All parts of the poem are bound together in a splendid unity. A cardinal feature of this unity is that the poem is a monologue, with minimal intervention by the poet.
The Wife’s Lament
The Wife’s Lament is one of the few Old English poems dealing with the relationship between man and woman and the only comprehensive study of a woman’s thoughts and feelings. The main theme is the bitterness of separation from her perspective. Some critics believe the woman speaks of two men: a lover and her husband. This view rests primarily on the abrupt changes in tone and the variety of terms for “man.” However, the breaks in continuity are consistent with the changes in the woman’s feelings. Since her terminology varies with her attitude, it is more likely that her lover and lord are the same person.
The poem opens with a conventional formula indicating its elegiac nature. It continues with a narrative passage where she describes the origin of her troubles: her lord’s departure overseas. She gives no reason, but there are hints that it was forced.
There is reason to believe he is unlikely to return; the plot to keep them apart depends on his absence, for the wife’s suffering takes place in her husband’s land. The poet’s primary purpose is to evoke a mood, not tell a story. Less than a third of the poem is devoted to the facts of the woman’s situation. Events are starkly presented in a condensed fashion, in an order that subordinates them to the dramatic expression of her lament.
The poem can be divided into two distinct and almost equal sections. The first contains almost all the narrative, told simply but punctuated by expressions of intense longing. The second describes the woman’s environment and emotions and their complex interaction. Her agony of mind is deepened by the gloom and hostility of nature in her place of exile.
The Wife’s Lament is preserved in the Exeter Book, on folio 115 recto and verso.