The Seafarer Research Paper

Anglo-Saxon literature was centered around one common theme, exile. The exile in literature is often about the banning of a person from a place. Most writers in this time period wrote an elegy for the things they miss from their time before their exiled. Some writers were forced into exile by others for political reasons while others fled for their own safety. As seen in “The Seafarer”, “The Wanderer”, and “The Wife’s Lament” exile was a major anxiety in Anglo-Saxon literature as the threat could come from anywhere at anytime.

The poem “The Seafarer” is about a man who has spent most of his life on the sea, as he starts his elegy by writing how the sea took him away. Within the first few lines, the Seafarer wrote about his suffering on hundreds of ships in thousands of ports as he was bound in frost. As the lines go on, the Seafarer tells of horrible living conditions where he was both hungry and cold, just drifting on an icy ocean, “No kinsman could offer comfort there, to a soul left drowning in desolation”(lns. 25-26). The poem sets itself up for the rest of the story, and the lines written lead readers to the assumption that his life on the sea was not easy, especially during the long winter months.

In line 48, the Seafarer begins to write about orchards blossoming, fields growing, and …show more content…
The Wife starts the poem by saying she made the sad song out of her griefs, both new and old. Then, she recounted how miserable she was as she cried each dawn after her lord left her and the rest of his people. Instead of continuing to wonder where her lord might be, she states in line 9 how she went forth in a “friendless” exile. Thus leading readers to believe she fled alone to find her lord without force from others. However, once the wife left, the lord’s kinsmen began to plot against her in an effort to divide the two, causing the wife to only suffer