This document is a term paper submitted by four students to their professor for an Old English poetry course. The paper analyzes and summarizes the Old English poem "The Wanderer". It discusses how the poem is structured as a monologue by an aging warrior who roams after losing his lord and kin. It also analyzes the poem's two distinct parts - a lament for his losses and reflections on man's fate. The paper concludes that "The Wanderer" uses the elegiac form to convey the meditations of a solitary exile on his past happiness, present hardships, and values of forbearance and faith in God.

1. UNIVERSITY OF ASIA PACIFIC
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
ENG 110 OLD ENGLISH POERTY IN TRANSLATION
Topic: The Wanderer
Submitted To:
Prof. S.M. Amanullah
Head
Department of English
University of Asia Pacific, Dhaka
Submitted By:
Nafis Kamal
Reg. No.: 13116003
Tasneem E Zannat
Reg. No.: 13116004
Janatul Bakiya
Reg. No.: 13116007
Priyanka Barua
Reg. No.: 13116009
First Year Second Semester
Department of English
University of Asia Pacific, Dhaka
Date of Submission: February 26, 2014

2. 26 February 2014
Prof. S M Amanullah
Head
Department of English
University of Asia Pacific
Subject: Submission of Assignment
Dear Sir,
Please, find enclosed our written assignment on ENG 110 (Old English Poetry in Translation).
The topic for the assignment was “The Wanderer”.
The term paper as given is a part and parcel of Course Code. ENG. 110 titled Old English Poetry
in Translation taught in this semester. We are indeed very grateful to you for making us exercise
on such an important an interesting area of the subject. We have enjoyed studying on the topic
and we are thankful to you for offering us such an interesting topic.
For our study purpose we have taken the help from prevalent book, which we have mentioned in
the Bibliography at the end of the paper for your kind information. But we have got the guideline
from your class lecture for which we are again thankful to you. We have tried to amass
knowledge authentically.
We therefore humbly request you to accept our assignment.
Regards,
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Nafis Kamal (Reg. No.: 13116003)
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Tasneem E Zannat (Reg. No.: 13116004)
--------------------------------------------
Janatul Bakiya (Reg. No.: 13116007)
---------------------------------------------
Priyanka Barua (Reg. No.: 13116009)

3. The Wanderer
By Anonymous poet
“The Wanderer”- is a poem which written in Old English and generically grouped into
lyrical elegy featured with monologue. It‟s written by an anonymous poet of Anglo-
Saxon period, who gives a brief introduction and conclusion, and the Wanderer, an
aging warrior who roams the world seeking shelter and aid. It fulfills the elegiac
traits. The Wanderer‟s monologue divides into two distinct parts, the first being a
lament for his exile and the loss of kin, friends, home, and the generosity of his kin.
In nature he finds no comfort, for he has set sail on the wintry sea. Poignantly the
speaker dreams that he is among his companions and embracing his kin, only to
awaken facing the gray winter sea and snowfall mingled with hail. In the
monologue‟s second portion, the wanderer reflects more generally on man‟s fate,
urging resignation and control of emotion as ways of meeting adversity.
Like, old English elegiac laments both the language and the structure of the
wanderer is difficult. The wanderer is arguably the most famous and critically-
debated Anglo-Saxon poem, and there are multiple interpretations of it. The poem is
admittedly difficult to decipher for several reasons. First of all, there could be more
than one narrator, as the poem fluctuates between personal experience and general
advice. Additionally, there is a hidden layer of metaphor alluding to the relationship
between pagan and Christian themes. “The Wanderer” is an elegy composed of
alliterative meter that focuses on the Wanderer‟s loss of his lord, his subsequent
grief, and his search for wisdom.
„The Wanderer‟ contains essentially of two speeches linked by a moralizing passage.
A close study of the poem provides us the sense that the first speech (from verse
eight to fifty-seven) is like an autobiographical account made by „home- stepper‟ a
word meaning „wanderer‟ or „grasshopper‟. His weird is to roam the seas in search of
a lord to replace his dead „gold-friend‟. From the verse eight, he speaks in the first
person like that of an autobiographer giving a personal account of his lamentation of
a solitary man who had once been happy in service of a loved lord but who now,
long after his lord‟s death and the passing away of that earlier time of happiness and

4. friendship, has become a wanderer journeying the paths of exile across the icy sea.
In his sea life, he doesn‟t find his near and dear ones and feels the pangs of
loneliness. Now he has become helpless, shelter less and friendless.
In “the Wanderer” we find a moralizing verse, which connects the two speeches. This
moralizing verse is called „Gnomic Lines‟. The poet very successfully breezed up the
1st step-2nd – 3rd step, having the moralizing verse. These gnomic lines changed
the mood of the poem at a stroke.
The second speech in “The Wanderer” in the form of bleak soliloquy sounds a wise
man‟s utterance which seems to be directed against the world as a whole. The
second speech is full of, conventional moralizing words which broadly cover- virtues
of a wise man, folly of boast making, the transience and futility of earthly life,
destruction or death as an inevitable end of life and no genuine possession or
acquisition, all is lent. At the beginning of the second speech, the speaker
concentrates on the virtue of a wise man. No man can grow wise without confronting
the adversities or vicissitudes of life because it is not always a smooth sail. A
Wiseman remains composed „he is not too hot-hearted‟, does not make haste
pronouncement „not too haste in speech‟, he is bold and courage „not too week a
warrior, does not lack in „forethought‟, lust cannot seize him „not to greedy of goods,
„he is not too glad nor to mild‟, nor is he ever too eager to boast‟ before he
appreciates all with reasons the virtues mentioned are traditional in outlook but they
do contain a universal essence. A man must wait, when he spokes in boast, until he
knows clearly, sure-minded, where the thought of his heart may turn. ‟All glorious life
is subject to decay, bright days, and days of happiness, misery and extinction. So,
nothing is permanent.
"The Wanderer" has been preserved in the Exeter Book, the biggest manuscript
collection of Old English poetry in existence. “The Wanderer”- belongs to the type of
the elegy – the Anglo Saxon elegy. “The Wanderer” conveys the meditations of a
solitary exile on his past happiness as a member of his lord‟s band of retainers, his
present hardships and the values of forbearance and faith in the heavenly lord. The
poem has a Christian frame work by a prologue and epilogue. The prologue and
epilogue are structured in five lines. In the first one and a half lines of the prologue

5. and in the first one and half lines of the epilogue, reference is made to the mercy of
God. In the prologue the poet laments his misfortune. In the epilogue the poet
express a religious theme of faith in god and seeking help to Almighty God. So, it can
be said that the lament of “The Wanderer” is an excellent example of the elegiac
mood so common in old English poetry.

6. Bibliography
Amanullah, SM. Anglo-Saxon Poetry in Translation, 1st
ed. Dhaka: Friends‟
Book Corner, 2012. 129-132