Reading Old English Poetry: A Comparative Analysis of “The Wanderer” and “The Wife’s Lament”Leitura em 2 minutos

  This essay intends to emphasize similarities between two Anglo-Saxon poems, looking for common characteristics among works from early Medieval English literature. I will address issues such as subject, historical contexts, structure, and sense of “the timeless” that they share. I will also briefly point out the different points of view they may bring in their individual narratives.

  As a matter of context, most Old English manuscripts that have been preserved, (considering most poems were normally passed down through generations orally), have reached us through the mediation of the Church. That is one possible reason why of the earliest instances of a poem written in (Old) English appears in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: in Caedmon’s Hymn, which tells a story about a cowherd that gains the ability to compose and sing poems through divine inspiration.

In “The Wife’s Lament”, we have a complex, well-developed character in the speaker. The poem expresses the pain that derives from the wife’s loss of her “lord” (husband). In “The Wanderer”, through another perspective, we get to know the feelings of a warrior. Even though these monologues of sorts might be seen as exemplary of what  different social roles were available in early Medieval English societies, they differ from the religious themes approached by Bede as well as in the poem “The Dream of Rood”, which deal with Christian imagery and values.

Ultimately, approaching Old English poetry to gauge what could be understood as standard practice for Early Medieval ideas around narrative structure, storytelling, prosody, rhyme schemes, rhythm, and imagery can be extremely helpful when one tries to understand that universe. “The Wanderer” stands out for its melancholy lament over the crumbling of the fabric of the community that warrior was a part of, while “The Wife’s Lament” is worthy of attention for its early representation of a female speaker, who addresses her reader/listener with an earnestness that begets a sense of intimacy. Therefore, we get a sense of the timelessness of some of the main themes in Anglo Saxon literature.