The Wife's Complaint '

Anglo-Saxon Elegy

Elegy: a formal and sustained lament in verse that commemorates death, war or love lost, usually ending in a consolation.

The Wife’s Lament
The story behind the lament remains obscure
The title of the poem is alternately translated as “The Wife’s Complaint”
In old English, the gender of pronouns in the poem reveals that this speaker is a woman (but that doesn’t necessarily mean the poet was a woman)
All that we can know for certain is that the speaker was married to a nobleman of another country
Her husband has left her (possibly forced into exile as a result of a feud)
His kinsmen are hostile to her
She is now living (?) alone in a wilderness
Although the circumstances are shadowy, it is reasonable to guess
that the wife may have been a “peace-weaver” (a woman married off to make peace between warring tribes)
The speaker employs the technique known as apostrophe in order to appear to speak directly to her audience (rhetoric)
Poem:
Lines 1-5: summarize what’s next to come
Poem about being sorrowful
Song, lyric poem
Fate- predetermined nation of the future, out of control
Exile- apart from something, suffer and sorrow
“Endure without end”- literal or feeling
Lines 6-14: happened previously
Lord- refer to husband or superior
Husband and wife did not know they were going to be separated
Lines 15
Exile whether emotional or physical has lead to isolation
Lord may be considering murdering his kinsmen (lord refused to part from his wife, going to extract revenge upon people who separated him)
“Bear the malice of the man I loved.” Whose directing malice towards her?
Previously talking about emotional exile, now talking about physical exile
Sorrowful mind, even if she escapes the cave she is imprisoned in her mind
If anyone should feel anguish put on a happy appearance
Experience sorrow but do not betray others
She deserved part of this treatment because she let others know how upset she was
Put on a happy face, husband lives in a happy place but is only happy when he thinks of their relationship
Woe unto him- woe can mean caution, or can mean a warning.
Caution to wait for a loved one, you will languish forever
Or don’t bother waiting- warning, don’t
wait

The Dream of the Rood
The finest of a rather large number of religious poems in old English
Neither its author nor its date of composition is known
It appears in a collection of late 10th century religious poems and sermons called the Vercelli book
A poem in three parts:
a) The Dreamers account of his vision of the Cross
b) The Rood’s monologue describing the crucifixion
c) The Dreamer’s resolution to seek the salvation of the cross
The cross suffers like Christ did, felt the nails Christ did.
Cross stands and withstands what Christ endures
Poem
No verification of what he was crucified on, cross, tree, wood, cross-beam
Line 10- not the cross of a criminal
Line 13- dreamer compared the sinful self to the tree
Metaphors- he knows the cross is sinless, and is the cross he was crucified on
Line 28- cross speaks
Eager to be crucified, he comes toward the cross, tears off his own clothes, climbs on the cross
Young man- God
Still has nail scars
The tree could of mauled them, chosen not to fight back against wrongful oppression
Line 61- took off cross
Sorrow of Christ, sorrow of people who see the cross and Christ, people who follow Christ became one with Christ
Line 71- “we” the cross and
Christ
Cross- symbol that becomes one with Christ himself
Dreamer thinks he's worshipping Christ because he’s worshipping the tree, thinks they are one in the same.
Followers of Christ voluntarily exile themselves
Message to reader- Lines 148-156