Depicting The Time Gone By In The Seafarer And The Wanderer

The poems The Seafarer, and The Wanderer have a similar elegiac quality. Each speaker tells a story about their journey from their past to the present. But, the past can’t disappear completely, since it remains in their ‘days toil’ memories. The ‘ubi sind’ formula is used in both to reflect loss and the temporary nature of life. For example, The Wanderer’s rhetorical set-piece uses the list format.

Hw?r Cwom Mearg? Hw?r Cwom ma? Hw?r Cwom mago? ?umgyfa?

Hw?r cwom symbla gesetu? Hw??r sindon seledreamas This rhetorical despair can be highlighted by the repetition of “Hw?”, which makes it seem that he is denial about his surroundings’ permanent loss. This structure has roots in Old English manuscript poems’ oral tradition. As the monosyllabic words demanding answers directly from potential audiences creates a striking new “movement” within the poem. This is followed by a repeat structure that he introduces with the vocative Eala:

Eala beorht bune! Eala beorht bune!

Eala ?eodnes ?rym!

The change from?Hw??r to?Eala is rhetorical question to lament. It conveys his loss of the familiar but doesn’t describe his actual exile or how he lost those particular aspects of life. However, the subject of the “Eala” movement changes. The gleaming cup (or armoured soldier) and the prince’s pride he bemoans in these lines are celebrated more in heroic tales that the everyday pleasures of the hall. This escalation allows him to express his grief more powerfully in his laments. If Pasternack’s suggestion, that manuscript poetry can substitute performance context for textual techniques, is accepted, the whole movement might be read to substitute for a performer acting in loss. The questions are emotional explanations that the reader receives that express his grief at the loss.

The Seafarer refers not to a past that a speaker has lost in order for him to be in exile at sea. Instead, the objects or locations of land (similar to The Wanderer’s objects) are depicted through a hypothetical shore man. The contrast of his comfortable, normal life with his lonely, harsh sea life conveys the meaning of his past. The man who lives the most happily on land cannot understand how harsh winter at sea is. The word bidroren’ is used to inform the reader that he had once kinsmen and has lost them. The Wanderer uses the same word in dreame bidrorene. The Wanderer is using this phrase to refer to rulers that have been deposed of all joys. Lines 80-86 contain the homiletic phrase ‘ubi sind’.

‘Dagas sind gewitene, ealle onmedlan eor?an rices; nearon nu cyningas ne caseras ne goldgiefan swylce iu w?ron, ?onne hi m?st mid him m?r?a gefremedon ond on dryhtlicestum dome lifdon.

Gedroren means?eos dugu eal; dreamas sind gewitene.’

Although the Latin poem ‘ubi sunt’ is the source of the lament, it’s expressed here in terms that will be familiar to anyone who has read Germanic heroic poetry. This includes the mentions ‘glorious works’ and a’magnificent renown. The Seafarer adds a familiarity to the story of a man lost in the harsh elements. He is separated from his past via literal distance and complete change in circumstances.

The Wanderer poet also makes reference to a distant past. The phrase eald entageorc, which is also found in the Exeter Book’s elegy, ‘The Ruin,’ is used primarily to describe the Roman ruins. However, it could also refers any relics from an older culture. The Wanderer’s speech is in Line 87. The speaker imagines the various death methods its inhabitants faced. Christine Fell believes that this implicitly Roman architecture as well as these universal and not specific descriptions of death offer a contrast from the Anglo-Saxon rhetorical laments regarding the treasure-giver (in the recently discussed?Hw??r) movement. The Roman past invokes thoughts on mortality and transience. The Anglo-Saxon specificity makes it difficult for the audience to relate those thoughts to their own culture. Another interpretation of The Wanderer’s historical context states that the speaker is as far from his personal past as he can be from a cultural one. The poem didactically suggests that a man sitting in front of the “ealdentageorc” would recall far away many slaughters. The prominent placement?feor after his caesura is yet another sign of his distance. These slaughters are vaguely related to his past. He is able to recall both the actual battles and those of long-gone civilizations through communal memory.

Riedinger suggested that Christianity in early medieval manuscript poems complicates home. The Seafarer and The Wanderer both treat Christianity as an elusive object due to their simultaneous longings for an earthly home and an eternal home beyond it. Both poems leave behind the familiar comforts of the past to make way for the present exile. This could be interpreted as a pilgrimage or path to heaven. In The Seafarer, Christianity’s presence seems to negate or supplant that past. The poet describes, in lines 100-101, how gold that someone has accumulated over their lifetime would not benefit them if they are full of sins.

Ne m??g be bib s?re sawle geoce for Godes Egsan’.

The line ends with the word’synna full’. This juxtaposes it to ‘gold’ and shows the relative insignificance earthly matters. It is possible to see God’s wrath in the face of a sinful life. However, previous lines described loss through the destruction of glory (‘Blid is gehniged’) as well as old age taking control of each man and stripping him off his friends (‘yldo her on fare’ – the subject yldo (yldo) surrounding the object to show the complete defeat from all sides. The world they knew was gone, and the people who lived it were eventually killed. The mention of sins being brought before God demonstrates that even though the possessions and people from your past are no longer relevant, your soul’s contents remain intact. Your actions throughout life will make your past relevant in the afterlife. Even if the world’s giddy luxuries, such as ‘ealleonmedlan eorban rices’, fade away, it is important to remember the past. According to the speaker, this man should be ‘gewis claene, reliable in his promises, and clean of his actions–in order for him to attain heaven. His past actions will determine the moral character he will bring to the afterlife. The end of the chapter contains a direct Christian admonition. It provides context for the misery and exile caused by the elements. However, he is not concerned about the earthly concerns of the land inhabitants. Morality alone can determine a path to heaven.

The way the speaker presents Christianity at The Wanderer’s conclusion also affects his relationship with the past. Bjork points out that the poem functions in an envelope structure. It gradually develops the scale between personal experience and universal truths. The central speaker sits in secret meditation (sundoraetrune) and accepts both his destiny and the transiences of earthly matter. The Wanderer transforms his hopeless, undirected exile from the Germanic tradition into an exile to the Christian faith and finds hope in being free from his past. This interpretation of the poem shows how he accepted his past’s unbeattainability. But, acceptance of his fate can also be read as a rejection or acceptance of the past society that he was part of. The conclusion could be more like a decision to disregard any connection to his previous due to the pain it’s causing him. Although this would be a continuation of the bitter, grieving tone of the poem earlier, Bjork’s interpretation is likely correct. The conclusion is a sincere assertion that Christian ‘are/mercy’ and it supports Bjork’s theme of using even your past experience (‘a share in winters’), to inform wisdom.

The idea of the Past being a foreign Country’ invokes an idea of extreme separation. As the Wanderer sees these current lives as distinct from their past, the Wanderer thinks that the battles that took him and his family to war are equivalent to ancient civilizations. And the Seafarer calls normal land life ‘dead’ but ‘transitory’ after he discovered greater meaning in the idea about heaven. The Seafarer’s focus on Christianity can be challenged because it acknowledges morality having an influence on judgement in afterlife. Even though your earthly actions may not have any effect, the actual absence of the Past is possible to be questioned. The Wanderer also benefits from the wisdom of the eponymous “eardstepa”; his experiences are a source of insight and experience. Both cases show that the spiritual ramifications from their pasts are permanent, even though they may seem temporary.

Works citées

‘The Wanderer & The Seafarer’ are both in ‘Old & Middle English: An anthology’. Elaine Treharne’s 2000 work, published by Blackwell Publishers, discusses the topic of 42-53.

Carol Braun Pasternack, “Anonymous Polyphony and The Wanderer’s Textuality”, Anglo-Saxon England 20, (1991), 99-122.

In Ida L. Gordan’s work, The Seafarer, which was published by Alden Press in 1979, the author states that “the sea does not rest” (26).

Christine Fell’s “Perceptions Of Transience”, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (eds. Malcolm Godden (1991), 172-189.

In her essay, Reidinger examines the concept of “home” as it is represented in Old English poetry. She notes that in many of these works, home is a place of safety and comfort that is connected to the idea of community. Reidinger suggests that this idea of home is often used to reflect a larger sense of identity and belonging. Additionally, she argues that the sense of home in Old English poetry is often connected to a larger spiritual significance, with home acting as a symbol of heaven or the divine.

Robert E. Bjork. “Sundoraet runninge”: A voluntary exile by Wanderer”, Neophilologus.73.1989, 119-129.