The Wanderer And The Wife's Lament '

Mysterious poems without known authors can be very intriguing. The wife's Lament, translated by Alfred David, can be classified as one of these poems. The poem is dated back to the middle ages mainly because of the way the poem was written and the cultural references within the poem. The poem is about a woman that is lamenting over her husband who abandoned her and put her into a position where she has to live in the wilderness alone. The Wife's Lament is an exemplary poem that contains an immense number of themes about exile, an interesting choice of imagery and a strong character progression. Firstly, The Wife's Lament is filled with evidence that supports the main theme to be related to exile. The speaker constantly refers to being
in a state of exile throughout the poem. The speaker also uses the word exile to explain one of the reasons the speaker is suffering. The speaker always places the word exile after using a phrase or word that describes sorrow such as in lines 5, 9, and 38-39. The speaker states that she "must endure... the misery of exile" (Line 5). This is a very useful and descriptive line that tells the reader the theme of the poem. The reason line 5 describes the theme extremely well is because it explains the reason why the wife is lamenting and then also states exile as the bases of the whole poem. Furthermore, The Wife’s Lament is often compared to another poem called The Wanderer, translated by Alfred David, because of their similar themes of exile.
In both of these poems the protagonists are in a position where they are in a position where they have to be alone. Additionally, the two poems share a common mindset, tone, and progression. For example in The Wanderer the protagonist speaks about a time when he was happy in the past but is no longer in a point of time where he is happy (lines 19-44). Similarly, in The Wife’s Lament the protagonist speaks of a time when she loved her husband (lines
1-14)
Another reason why these poems are often compared to each other is because they were both written in the middle ages and both translated by Alfred David. The Wanderer is a poem well known for having a theme of exile contained within it. Because The Wanderer and The Wife’s Lament are often compared it is reasonable to assume that The Wife’s Lament will have a similar theme to The Wanderer. Secondly, the imagery used to describe the speaker's surroundings is extremely interesting.
In this 54 lined poem, 15 lines are dedicated to the description of the speaker’s home and surroundings. The speaker describes her home as a cave in a grove under an oak tree (lines 27-8). Although the actual description of the speaker’s home is rather simple, the speaker afterwards does start describing her surroundings which starts to help understand how sorrowful the wife actually is. In her descriptions she uses depressing adjectives such as dark dales, high dunes, and overgrown briers to stress the depression she is feeling (lines 30-3). The dark description used to describe the speaker's surroundings show that the speaker is not in a stable state of mind. According to a study done on depressed patient word choice it is shown that there are "decrements in the detection of positive" words in depressed patients (Atchley). Because of this someone could tell that the speaker is in a depressed frame of mind which makes the speakers reliability questionable. All of the interesting imagery used by the speaker allows the reader to look further into the poem and question the reliability of the speaker. Finally, the poem has a strong character development of the protagonist who is also the speaker. In the poem the protagonist begins in a state of love for her husband to such a great degree that she follows her husband after he departed across seas (lines 6-14). However, by the end of
the poem the protagonist wanted her husband to suffer in the same way she did (50-54). The protagonist shows a complete transformation of character in the poem; from being in love with her husband to hating him. This character development greatly improves the quality of the poem. Ultimately, The Wife's Lament is a poem that actively engages the reader with good themes, imagery, and character development. The poem's themes of exile resonate with the reader and make the poem something that stands out of others that are more commonly about nature, finding love and death. The imagery used effectively produces an image the reader can use to analyze the poem and draw conclusions that help the reader understand not just the literal meaning of the poem but also the figurative meaning of the poem. The character development of The Wife’s Lament brings reader into an atmosphere that helps the poem become more engaging in addition to keeping the poem something that will be pondered for a greater amount of time. Poems like The Wife's Lament help teach readers that life can always be a lot worse than what it currently is in addition to teach the reader how to avoid certain situations in life that could make life in to something that is not worth living.