Compare/Contrast "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer"

Isaac Atayero

Mr. John Campion

AP English Language

9/28/11

 The Anglo-Saxon poems “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” share many of the same elements that make them similar. The Wanderer and the Seafarer, the protagonists, are both exiled from their society. During the separation of the protagonists from their comitatus and their exile from their society, they experience a series of physical adversities.These hardships provoke spiritual and emotional needs in the  minds of the Seafarer and the Wanderer. At the end of both poems there is an addendum by the Christian monks in an attempt to influence the Anglo-Saxons at the time.

      One of the similarities between the Wanderer and the Seafarer is the separation of the protagonists from their comitatus and exile from their society. The Wanderer is separated from his comitatus because he escapes from a war and leaves them. During this time all the members of his comitatus die leaving him to be the only survivor of his comitatus. The Wanderer is also an exile because the members of the society do not accept him when they realize what he did to his comitatus. At the very beginning of “The Wanderer”, the narrator states that he is “sailing endlessly and aimlessly in exile” and further into the poem he says that he is “alone, an exile in every land”. The Seafarer separates himself from his comitatus for atonement of his sins and he is an exile because while he goes “back and forth...in a hundred ships, in a hundred ports” that he becomes Christian so he goes on ‘“the paths of exile stretch endlessly on”. “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” have many similar themes and their separation and their exile is one of the these important themes.

     Another one of the similarities between The Wanderer and the Seafarer are the many physical adversities that the two protagonists face during their exile. The Wanderer faces a series of challenges during one “too many lonely dawns” and while he is “lost and homeless, forced to flee” he is alone and “weary with winter”. In the winter “warmth is dead” and he “wandered out on the frozen waves”  in “the horror of winter, smothering warmth in the shadow of night. And the north angrily hurls its hailstorms at our helpless heads”.The Wanderer, during his exile, cries in despair saying “how cruel a journey, sharing my bread with sorrow”. The Wanderer’s physical hardships are very similar to the Seafarer’s hardships , which cause his “feet  were cast in icy bands,bound with frost”. He talks about how “hardship groaned around my heart” and “hunger tore at sea-weary soul”. The Seafarer experiences these physical hardships as he is “drifting through winter on an ice-cold sea”. “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer”’s series of physical hardships are a reminder of how similar the two poems are really are.

      “ The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” are similar because the protagonists of the protagonists of the two poems go through a series of physical hardships that cause them to contemplate spiritual matters. The Wanderer, who was “grey with mourning...the men to whom my heart could hurry, hot with longing”first begins to contemplate emotional matters when the “frozen waves “ begin to become loathsome “to a weary heart”.His “mind is  set on melancholy” and he starts to realize that “fortune vanishes,friendship vanishes, man is fleeting,woman is fleeting” but “God, the heavenly rock where rests our every hope”.The Seafarer has a similar revelation about the ephimeral things of the world while “fear   and pain showed me suffering in a hundred ships”. During his hardships the Seafarer discovers that “all glory is tarnished” and “the wealth of the world neither reaches to heaven nor remains”. The Seafarer, like the Wanderer,  comes to discover that we should “all fear God” and that only God can give “eternal joy”. “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” share many similar factors and their discovery of spiritual matters through physical hardships is another one of these factors.

       “The Wanderer ‘ and “The Seafarer” are similar because they both have an addendum attached at the end by Christian monks. “The Wanderer” is an Anglo-Saxon poem , so Christian ideals such as “it is good to guard your faith...It is good to find your grace... In God, the heavenly rock where rests our every hope” are obviously not the kind of things that Anglo-Saxon poets would write about in a poem about an Anglo-Saxon hero. The reader sees the same thing happen at the end of “The Seafarer”, which ends with Christian Ideals such as “God is mightier than any man’s mind...life is born in the love of God and hope of heaven. Praise the Holy Grace of Him who honored us, Eternal, unchanging creator of earth, Amen”. These are ideals that Anglo-Saxons would not have or write about. Another way that we know that these poems were tampered with is that the monks wrote g in the upper case, another thing an Anglo-Saxon poet would not do. the monks tampered with this poems in an effort to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. \The addendum at the end of both poems is another similarity between the two poems.

     “The Wanderer”and “The Seafarer” are two elegies written by Anglo-Saxons that share many of the same components.The exile of the two main characters is one striking similarity between the two poems. The physical hardships that the two main characters go through is another notable resemblance between the two poems. One theme that should stand out to the reader in the the two poems is the interest in spiritual matters that the two main characters find after going through a series of unfortunate events. Another motif that is worthy of mention in the two poems ,is the addendum at the end of the two works planted by the Christian monks at the time. These similarities are no coincidence and they tie these two poems together.