Poem Analysis: The Exeter Book

The Exeter Book is a collection of Anglo-Saxon poems that were put into a book. They are a group of poems that were written by Vikings a long time ago about their experiences. Many of their experiences were out on the ocean considering they would be away from home for around five years at a time while they were trying to capture a territory. Some of the wives would write poems about what it was like while their husband and a large amount of their male population was away for five years, and the sorrows and troubles that they faced in that span of time. These poems are meant to be read as metaphors or symbols that mean and stand for something a lot bigger than what their specifically talking about. Personally, I believe that three messages from Exeter book would be suffering, when you’re suffering other people don’t always understand, and that we take things for granted until we lose them. …show more content…
All three of the poems that we read from the Exeter Book specifically talk about people suffering throughout the poem. In The Seafarer, a man is lost and sea and is writing about his insane suffering and all of the things that he misses from his home village. “How the sea took me, swept me back and forth in sorrow and fear and pain, showed me suffering in a hundred ships, in a thousand ports, and in me. It tells of smashing surf when I sweated in the cold of an anxious watch, perched in the bow as it dashed under cliffs.” (Page 21, Lines 2-9) This quote shows just how bad the author of this poem is suffering out at sea by himself. To the Anglo-Saxon people of Britain, home meant something different from when it means for people today. This would be why the author is suffering so much because he misses home so