"The Seafarer" and "The Wanderer" are two Old English poems included in the Exeter Book. These poems can be considered elegies; and tell a first-person story of exile and solitude, contrasting the hard times of the present with evocation of a glorious past: memory becomes a source of consolation. The Wanderer is an Old English poem from the 10th century, preserved in the Exeter Book. ... The initial page of the Peterborough Chronicle, likely scribed around 1150, is one of the major sources of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. ... The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth century book (or, as some prefer, a codex) of Anglo-Saxon poetry. ... Elegy was originally used for a type of poetic metre (Elegiac metre), but is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. ... EXILE is a 6-member Japanese pop music band. ...

The Seafarer is a 124 line poem that deals with the experience of an outsider. Indeed the poet's condition of exile has many parallels with the modern idea of the artist's estrangement from society. It begins with a lament of suffering until the speaker understands that he prefers to live a life of hardship on the waves rather than having security of land that he considers a pointless vanity.

References

External links

• The Seafarer translated by Ezra Pound