The Seafarer in responce to The Wanderer

The Seafarer, in Response to The Wanderer
The Wanderer and The Seafarer, found in the Exeter Book, have long been considered companion poems; some scholars even debate as to whether or not they were composed by the same author. The similarities throughout these texts, in both subject and structure, make it easy to see why so many scholars continue to compare the two poems; both reflect upon cold winters at sea and the loss that is inevitable on earth. The discussion of these poems is long dated and still ongoing; today it is generally accepted that though these poems may not have been composed by the same poet, their semblance makes it prudent that they be read and analyzed together. Upon a closer reading of translations by R. M. Luizza, I suggest that the two poems are not just companions, but that The Seafarer is actually a response to the desolation felt by the speaker in The Wanderer.
The Wanderer and The Seafarer are considered to be elegies, which though in Greek and Latin literature referred to a specific metrical style, has, since the sixteenth century, been used to describe poems of lament or mourning. But the term “elegy” has been used more loosely to describe any serious meditative poem and it is in this sense that these poems should be considered elegies. Rosemary Woolf argues that these works should not be considered elegies, but instead be considered among the primarily medieval genre of planctus. She states that “the characteristics of this genre that divide it from elegy are firstly that the speaker is invariably fictional and secondly that, whilst the subject of the lament may be a death, it can equally well be any kind of loss that is experienced intensely” (192). According to T. A. Shippey, despite the genre these poems belong to, it is generally accepted by readers that “the speakers of both poems are doing what speakers of North European cultures still feel obliged to: namely, not talk too much about themselves, and if impelled to, to disguise this impolite self-centeredness by extending it to general experience” (148). Anglo-Saxon poets attempt to eliminate anything in their works that would make them exclusively personal, and instead turn to the generalizations that anyone who hears, or later reads, could relate to. As Peter Clemoles points out, “much poetry was, in fact, an interplay of two forms of social generalization, the one explicit, the other implied by narrative” (121).
It is the narrative of these poems that stir up so many questions about the composition and structure; are these poems the works of a single poet using one voice, or are they each composed by separate poets using many voices? John C. Pope suggests that The Wanderer and The Seafarer are written by the same poet, basing his opinion on the stylistic similarities between the two works. Both works, he argues, are written by using the narrator to relate to the audience the stories of the separate voices heard within the works. The two distinct voices in The Wanderer, he suggests, are the mourner, who “is dwelling on the sorrows he himself has endured, generalizing them only enough to include others whose lot closely resembles his own”, and the thinker, who “seems to have put aside his personal sorrows…in exchange for thoughts about mankind at large” (166). Pope believes that the narrator of The Wanderer is acting as a neutral reporter, quoting each of the speakers in turn to allow the audience to interpret the importance of each (170). He similarly breaks down the structure of The Seafarer into two respective parts, naming them A and B, stating that “The first half, A, is lyric and dramatic and contains frequent reference to the sea, wheras the second, B, starts with a reasoned attack on the world and its values, ends with precepts and a sermon-like exhortation, and does not mention the sea” (174). Pope concludes by saying that though there are differences in the poems, “the extraordinarily close resemblances in style, structure, and underlying ideas”, make it hard to resist that the two works come from the same poet (188).
Others, like W. F. Klein, have suggested that both The Wanderer and The Seafarer should be broken down into three respective sections; he feels that each of the sections arises from the poems’ “traditional and fundamentally contrasting modes of manifest in human character” (218). Klein states that “each of these sections deal, in obvious ways, with past, present and future human moments” (219). Anne Savage also sees The Wanderer in three relating sections; however, she does not relate the sections to the passage of time as Klein does. She feels “the poem is structured by assumptions about what is meaningful and valuable in the poet’s society… The poet does this by having his audience consider the concept in different contexts: personal insecurity (lines 1-57), the insecurity of the world (lines 58-110) and the security of God the Father (lines 111-end)” (95).
It is obvious that the two works have more than enough qualities in common to justify studying them together; I, however, suggest a slightly different approach to the nature in which the two works should be examined; I offer the possibility that The Seafarer is a response to the lament of The Wanderer. In order to show this I will first disassemble different characteristics within The Wanderer and then compare them to The Seafarer. The poem The Wanderer relates the journey of a man who struggles with his exile; as mentioned before, the subject of the voice(s) heard throughout the poem is open for debate I am not calling into question whether the poet intended the poem to be heard from one voice or two, but simply what he has to say about the matter of exile in relation to man. The poem begins with a narration; in this opening narration there is mention of the “Maker” (2), showing that the poet is not pagan in belief. The narrator also mentions in this opening passage how “Wyrd is fully fixed!” (5); this usage of wyrd, or fate, outside the working of God may seem to contradict the belief of the poet, but as I. L Gordon points out, God and fate are “equally regarded in the poem as the terrible force that destroys the works of man” (5). The brief narration introduces the voice of the poem that is heard, “Thus spoke the Wanderer” (6), and here begins the first section of the poem, which for the ease of my argument I will refer to, like Pope, as the voice of the mourner. The mourner roams the seas in search of a new land that he could call his own again: “He remembers hall-holders and treasure-taking, / how in his youth his gold-giving lord / accustomed him to the feast” (34-36). This exile searches for signs of the life he once knew; he is often reflective of his “gold-giving friend” (22), longing for someone who knows of his people, willing to give him comfort from his life as a “wretched exile” (40). His lament is for his former life; he wishes to be back under the care of his lord:
And so I cannot imagine for all this world
why my spirit should not grow dark
when I think through all this life of men,
how they suddenly gave up the hall-floor,
mighty young retainers. Thus this middle-earth
droops and decays every single day; (58-63)
The mourner mentions the wintery sea only to show his distaste for having been exiled and forced to roam. The first “voice” of this poem is not reflective of any kind of Christian belief; however, I will not suggest, as C. C. Farrell has, that this poem is “heathen to the core and shows almost no trace of Christian influence” (402). It is simply that through his grief the mourner simply does not announce any Christian belief.
The first portion of this poem simply relays the despair the wanderer feels from having lost kinsmen and his lord. The second portion of this poem is more reflective of traditional wisdom poetry, as the speaker has become introspective about the journey of life. Again, I will refer to this section (following Pope’s suggestion) and call this portion, the voice of the thinker. The thinker begins by saying “and so a man cannot become wise, before he has weathered / his share of winters in this world. A wise man must be patient;” (64-65). He is now able to look beyond the misery of his exile to see that there is something greater after this life. It is in this latter portion of the poem that the Christian influence begins to show through. The thinker also becomes ruminant of the inevitability of death to all things:
Walls stand blasted by wind,
beaten by frost, the buildings crumbling.
The wine halls topple, their rulers lie
deprived of all joys; the pround old troops
all fell by the wall. War carried off some,
sent them on the way, one a bird carried off
over the high seas, one the grey wolf
shared with death-- (76-83)
He begins to question the life he has lived and the fate that has taken the life of so many warriors like him. Again, the poet credits “wyrd the mighty”, for the destruction that he has witnessed (100). It is towards the end of this poem that the voice of the wanderer becomes truly Christian in nature. He realizes that only in heaven are things everlasting; on earth, “Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting, / here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting” (108-109).
It is after this realization that the narration from the beginning of the poem comes back. The narration cautions that one should always keep their word and not anger too quickly. This ending narration, like the one in the beginning of the poem, offers solace to the wanderer who has been exiled by wyrd; the narrator has just related the story of the desolation of the wanderer and now puts his sorrows into a grander picture:
It will be
well for one who seeks mercy,
consolation from the Father in heaven, where for
us all stability stands. (115-118)
It is here where the words of the narrator give an eternal meaning to the words that the wanderer spoke throughout the poem.
The Seafarer begins, as The Wanderer does, with a narration; this however, is a first person narration: “I sing a song of myself” (1). This sets the tone of the seafarer’s response to the wanderer; here the seafarer is showing that he is worthy enough to speak for himself, that these are his troubles and his experiences. The speaker of The Seafarer also refers to the ocean and the icy waves just as in The Wanderer; however, the description given by the seafarer seems to resonate more in the audience because of the detail used. It is the difference between “the ocean-ways” (3) of The Wanderer, and the “terrible tossing of the waves” (6) of The Seafarer. The wanderer’s hands, which have been forced to stir “the frost-cold sea” (4), are combated by the seafarer’s feet “bound by frost” (9). The wanderer has been forced, by the passing of his lord to become exiled from the comforts he once enjoyed, while it seems to the audience that the seafarer chose his life on sea, as terrible as it may be. The first portion The Seafarer, as in The Wanderer, can be seen as a reflection on the hardships of life; the seafarer, however, points out:
That man does not know,
he whose lot is fairest on land,
how I, wretched with care, dwelt all winter
on the ice-cold sea in the paths of exile. (12-15)
It is here that the poet begins to make his point to the exile in The Wanderer. The poet mentions an anonymous “he,” informing the audience that this anonymous land dweller “proud and puffed up with wine,” knows not “what I, weary, / have often had to endure in my seafaring” (49-50).
This section is a constant reminder to the wanderer that his life of turmoil is nothing compared to the life the seafarer has chosen. The seafarer points out to the wanderer that there is no joy in the world that amounts to what joy one should receive from the Almighty Lord. The lord that is referred to in The Wanderer is that an earthly one, the lord that gives gold and earthly possessions; the Lord in The Seafarer is an eternal one and brings salvation. As in The Wanderer, The Seafarer also mentions how life and everything worldly will inevitably come to an end, but the seafarer suggests an alternative use of life lived on earth; instead of wasting time praising your earthly lord, rather:
do bold deeds to beat the devil,
so the sons of men will salute him afterwards,
and his praise thereafter live with the angels
forever and ever, in the joy of eternal life,
delight among heaven’s host. (76-80)
The seafarer is proving himself to be a more worthy man than the wanderer.
The latter portion of The Seafarer is also similar to the second section of The Wanderer, in that it is a reflection, not of the troubles that one finds in life, but of the possibilities and inevitabilities that exist beyond this life. Whereas the narrator in The Wanderer devotes only a handful of lines at the end of the poem to give reverence to the Almighty, the poet of The Seafarer makes use of the retrospection of the entire second half of the poem to begin a homiletic narration. Here, the poet points out to the wanderer, who was so fond of his “gold-giving friend” (Wanderer 22), “that gold will be useless before the terror of God / for the soul that is full of sin” (Seafarer 100-101). It is in this second half that the seafarer is truly able to make his point to the wanderer; as Rosemary Woolf argues:

The poet seems in fact to have given an individual twist to the traditional of man as an exile (as used in The Wanderer) and of life as a sea-voyage. According to his stylized figurative pattern the man who lives a life on land is always in a state of security and contentment: he is therefore mindless of the Christian image of man as an exile; indeed the poet’s insistence on the point suggests that there is a resolute rejection of it. The sea, however, is always a place of isolation and hardship: the man therefore who chooses to be literally what in Christian terms he is figuratively must forsake the land and live upon the sea. (204-5)
It is not enough that the wanderer know that life is harder at sea the seafarer must ensure that the wanderer see how the journey of the seafarer is grander than that of the wanderer because he is doing it with a bigger purpose in mind; the seafarer chose his life over the ocean because this was not the easiest path to follow.
The similarities in the structure and subject matter in The Wanderer and The Seafarer are undeniable, and it is through these similarities that I see the poet of The Seafarer responding to The Wanderer; the anonymous “he” that is repeated throughout The Seafarer is actually a reference to The Wanderer. Structurally, the poems are the same so that the response is an accurate one; The Seafarer poet must challenge each of the laments of The Wanderer in order to show which the righteous path is. According to The Seafarer, life must be spent in its entirety in exile, in order to appreciate the gift that has been given by God; exile is something that, though difficult, must be sought not forced upon an individual, to obtain the knowledge of and passion for the “Ruler of Glory, / Eternal Lord, throughout all time” (Seafarer 123-124).