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The Wanderer
Translated by Charles W. Kennedy
The Wanderer
This work is considered the most
nearly perfect in form and feeling of
all the surviving Old English poems.
The Wanderer
Dates back to 700 AD when
Scandinavia was in upheaval.
Immigrants used songs and poems to
keep their homelands “alive.”
Exile = separation from one’s
home or native country
For an Anglo-Saxon warrior this
meant losing his Lord and his mead
hall.
Wraecca
a word meaning “wretch, stranger,
unhappy man, and wanderer”
Literary Terms you need to know
Stoicism
 Tone
 Litotes
 Motif

Stoicism
a state where a human does not show or
feel any emotion – completely
indifferent, not just hiding feelings
Tone
the attitude of a literary work toward
its subject and the audience (formal
vs. informal, humorous vs. serious)
Litotes
a characteristic figure of speech in Old English
poetry – a form of understatement in which a
thing is affirmed by stating the negative of its
opposite (think double negative) (ie. She was
not unkind = She was kind)
Motif
a recurring literary element that serves
as the basis for expanding the narrative
(music – When it is heard, the couple
falls in love.)
First motif found in The Wanderer

Ubi sunt que ante nos fuerunt? (Latin for
– Where are they who before us went?)

Lines 90 – 94

They are nostalgic or seeking the past.
Second motif found in The
Wanderer

Mutability = the inevitability of change.
Things are going to change.

This is at odds with the concept of
nostalgia. As a result, this poem has 2
conflicting motifs in action.
The Wanderer in a nutshell
A stoic wraecca is at sea
remembering the mead hall and his
lost life.
Reading Poetry – in general

Don’t stop at the end of a line, stop at
the punctuation mark. The end of the
line has to do with the “beat” of the line;
it has nothing to do with the “meaning”
of the line. Reading to the punctuation
mark is called enjambment.