Literatura Inglesa I, The Wanderer and The Wife’s Lament 1
Prof. Pilar Villar Argáiz
THE WANDERER AND THE WIFE’S LAMENT
Read The Wanderer and The Wife’s Lament (pages 111-114) and take into
consideration the following issues:
1. Make sure you can summarise the content of each poem.
2. Identify the elements which make each poem likely to be ascribed to the elegiac genre
(subject matter and tone).
3. How many voices (“narrators”) can you perceive in each text? How does each
contribute to our perception of the story they tell?
4. Look for the references to “fate” in each poem. How is it perceived?
5. Explain the formation and possible meaning of the following kennings:
• water-way
• heart’s coffer
• hoard-case (of his mind)
• wine-hall / mead-hall
• gold-friend
• winter-sad
• middle-earth
• storm-tossed (sea)
6. Find examples of reminiscences of the original alliterative rhyme in the translation.
7. What does the speaker of The Wanderer praise in a man? What, according to the
speaker, makes a man “wise”? Are the same virtues praised in a woman according to
The Wife’s Lament?
8. What can you infer of the position of women in Anglo-Saxon society from reading The
Wife’s Lament?
9. How is nature portrayed in both poems? Do they share common characteristics?
Comment on that.
10. Can you see Pagan and Christian elements coexisting in the poems? Comment on that,
making sure that you deal with the way each poem reflects the main important aspects
of Anglo-Saxon society.
