The Suffering of the Exiled Warrior in the Poem “The Wanderer”

“The Wanderer” is a depressing, bleak lament of life’s suffering from the perspective of an exiled warrior detached from his former friends and “liege-lord,” who are now dead. The speaker vividly describes his loneliness and sorrow, and paints an apocalyptic picture of the world’s future, imagining it as “wind-swept and wasted / downed by frost” (76). However, while the poem foretells this future of chaos and ruin, and primarily presents life as an experience of suffering, it also points to life’s joys, and presents a Christian solution to the problem of existence.

One short passage, from lines 39-50, succinctly captures this all and more. With careful diction, a variety of sound devices, visual imagery, and Christian symbolism, the passage both implies the value systems of the Anglo-Saxon people and conveys a Christian conception of the human condition. Understanding this seemingly simple passage is useful not only for developing a greater appreciation of the rich poem, but also for understanding the poem’s major themes, and by extension, the major themes behind much of the English literary tradition.

The passage begins with dual images of embrace. After “sorrow and sleep together / bind the poor lone-dweller in their embrace,” the wanderer “dreams he clasps and that he kisses / his liege-lord again” (39-42). In the first image, a personified sorrow and sleep “bind” the wanderer, while in the second image, the dreaming wanderer “clasps” his liege-lord. Though they express a similar action, the verb “bind” is much more negative, forceful, and violent than “clasp,” which has a positive, mutual connotation. This, then, immediately sets up the dichotomy of reality as negative and hostile, and dreaming, or a temporary disconnection from reality, as positive and enjoyable.

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Sleep and death, excepting the use of substances, are the only ways of becoming disconnected from reality. It is not a stretch, therefore, to draw a connection between the two, and imagine sleep, in this context, as acting symbolically to represent death. The speaker, then, symbolically portrays death, through dreaming, as a welcome release from the suffering of life. This very Christian idea is a major theme of the poem, and is made even more explicit at the poem’s close, where the speaker implores the reader to look for “help from our Father in heaven where a fortress stands for us all” (115). The conceptualization of being disconnected from reality as a positive event is also underscored by repeated “l” alliteration in the description of the wanderer’s dream.

The wanderer “kisses / his liege-lord again, lays head and hands / on the lord’s knees as he did long ago” (42-44). This alliteration produces of euphonious effect, which helps convey the idea that the dream is a pleasing experience for the downtrodden wanderer. Beyond emphasizing the dream, and thereby death, as positive, the alliterative quality of the lines also suggests that the events within the dream itself are positive. By describing the wanderer’s interaction with his former lord in this positive way, the values of the wanderer’s culture can then be implied. It is right and good to be loyal, to serve, and to show deference to your leader.

In fact, it suggests that the subjects of a liege-lord should act in these ways not only to satisfy social expectations, but also because they are enjoyable to the subject individual in their own right. As opposed to potentially more modern values of independence and self-sufficiency, the Anglo-Saxon warrior seems to place an increased importance on the values of duty, companionship, and being assimilated into a codependent group.

The importance of companionship is reinforced further when the wanderer awakes: “Then the warrior, friendless, awakens again” (45). Set off between double caesuras, the wanderer is described with the epithet, “friendless.” While the caesuras mirror the abruptness, and the unwelcomed nature of the awakening, they also emphasize the tragedy, within the world of the poem, of being without companionship. Through the caesuras, the speaker, essentially, gives the wanderer a moment of silence for his loneliness.

Furthermore, the syntax of the line even suggests that the true tragedy of the wanderer’s awakening, and symbolically, his existence, is the very fact of his friendlessness. The line can be read as “Then the warrior awakens again [to his] friendless[ness].” This idea is supported by the following lines: “[the warrior] sees before him the fallow waves / seabirds on the water spreading their wings, / snow and hail falling and sleet as well” (46-48). The correct meaning of “fallow,” in this Old English context, would be, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “of a pale brownish or reddish-yellow color.” Waves are not usually described as pale brown or reddish-yellow, and so, this imagistic depiction is a deliberate choice by the speaker, intended to create a negative effect.

The image, therefore, emphasizes the fact that the warrior cannot find solace in the natural world, no natural beauty can comfort him in his exile. The Old English word for “fallow,” however, can also be used to describe ploughed, uncultivated land. This double meaning, then, works also to emphasize the world’s inhospitable, hostile nature. The sea before the wanderer is, in some sense, uncultivated, unordered, and chaotic. It is no friend to him, and again, offers him no solace. The description of birds, snow, hail, and sleet also reinforce this idea. The speaker, by describing birds in flight and precipitation, draws the reader’s attention to the air around the wanderer. In doing so, the speaker creates space, conveys the emptiness surrounding the wanderer, and by extension, emphasizes his loneliness.

Furthermore, the speaker employs frequent “s” alliteration. This repetition of thin, sharp sounds also emphasizes the space around the wanderer, and the cold clime surrounding him. These techniques all work together to convey the natural world, and existence in general, as mean, antagonistic, and unwelcoming, which reinforces the wanderer’s misery and the Christian theme of finding peace not in earthly life, but in the life after earth.

Because sleep, in this passage, is used to symbolize death, the wanderer’s dream can also be interpreted as symbolic of a meeting with God in heaven. The repeated use of the word “lord,” and the speaker’s submissive behavior towards his lord (“lays head and hands / on the lord’s knees”) work to emphasize this idea. The symbolism reinforces the Christian perspective of the speaker and the wanderer, and suggests, again, that death should be viewed as a welcome release from life, and that death is not final. Earthly existence is but a temporary period of testing, which should be suffered through in the hopes of finding salvation in God, in death.

The wanderer, in the dream, looks back to when he “enjoyed the gift-giving in days gone by” (44). This points not only to “gift-giving” as a source of happiness in life, but also to the duties expected of a leader. In return for loyalty and service, a liege-lord is expected to reward his subjects with gifts. This expectation mirrors the Christian concept of Lord God. God, in return for the same things an earthly lord demands (loyalty, service, and deference), is expected to reward his followers with a gift, the gift of everlasting life in heaven. This transactional relationship is a major theme of not only this poem, but many other Old English poems. It is important, as well, because it acts as a director of human life. If the world is largely a process of suffering, and true peace cannot be attained, why should one live a virtuous life? The poem answers: because doing so guarantees you the gift of peace and happiness in the afterlife.

In these 11 short lines, with careful diction, sound devices, vivid visual imagery, and Christian symbolism, the core ideas of “The Wanderer” are concisely and effectively expressed. As opposed to another Old English poem, “Beowulf,” the speaker of this poem believes in a Christian afterlife and argues that the only way to find true solace and stability is by living a virtuous life in which you loyally serve both your earthly and heavenly lords. The only answer to the suffering of life, therefore, is God, and his reward of a “fortress” in heaven. This somewhat didactic theme is a common thread throughout much of the Christian English literary tradition. Understanding it and being able to recognize it even within the shortest of passages, then, is a worthwhile skill that this essay hopes to help develop.

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