The Seafarer And The Wife's Lament

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Counted as the least favorite feeling, however, loneliness attacks everyone and exists all the time. Depicted vividly, especially during the Anglo-Saxon period, loneliness shows up throughout the Exeter book, which is the largest collection of Old English poetry. No matter in “The Seafarer”, whose narrator bears a lonely sea journey and turns to god for help; in “The Wanderer”, in which the traveler wanders alone over the sea with no family left, but keeps his faith in god; or in “The Wife’s Lament”, whose female figure expresses the deep grief of husband’s betrayal and relieves through anger, all poems expose the reality that people are suffering from the loneliness but finding ways to cope with their problems. In “The Seafarer”, the main idea is to show the narrator’s belief in God gives him hope during the lonely journey. The author first talks about his lonely sea-journey experience through imagery. Using his senses of touch and sight, “My feet were cast / In the icy bands, bond with frost / With frozen chains” (8-10), the narrator implies that he goes through the…show more content…
The traveler thinks about fate, wise and death. From the view of a wise man, the narrator explains the truth of earthly life “this earth, crushing our callow mirth” (84), which people are all gone eventually, without mead-hall pleasures (92) or glorious status (90) but cold loneliness. However, in the final paragraph, the traveler reinforces to “guard your faith” (110) and “find your grace in God” (113) to relieve and regain hope. Similar to “The Seafarer”, the tone of “The Wanderer” also changes through the poem. Though the first part of the poem is in sorrow and loneliness, the author finds a way to solve all the sufferings by turning to

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