“The Seafarer” Translated by Burton Raffel

1. “The Seafarer”Translated by Burton Raffel Composed by an unknown poet during Anglo-Saxon times Mrs. Williams – English 12

3. Part of The Exeter BookThe Exeter Book was given to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric in the 11th century. It contained a collection of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts – including “The Seafarer” and is described as "a large English book of poetic works about all sorts of things"

4. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts • Can be considered an elegy, or mournful, contemplative poem. An elegy mourns something or someone that has been lost. • Can also be considered a planctus, or “complaint.” This would involve a fictional speaker and a subject that may be loss other than death. • Regardless, the expression of strong emotion is the key.

5. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts cont. • What the poem has that most Anglo-Saxon poems also have: • Caesuras – pause in a line • Alliteration – repetition of consonant sounds - joins the 2 parts of the line • Kennings – metaphorical phrases

6. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts • Caesura and alliteration in action “The only sound / was the roaring sea” • Kennings “coldest seeds” = hail “givers of gold” = Anglo-Saxon kings

7. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts • A wraecca tells his tale; he is at sea. (A “wraecca” was a person who had been EXILED from his community.) • Poem highlights the balance between the Anglo-Saxon belief in fate, where everything is grim and overpowering, and the Christian believer’s reliance on God.

8. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts • The land represents safety and security. • The sea represents hardship and struggle, but the man is drawn to it because it brings him closer to God. The sea represents the power of God. • Suffering = personal growth • “Home” represents heaven or being closer to God.

9. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts • The following lines you’ll want to be able to define. (understand = test) • “Sweated in the cold of an anxious watch, perched in the bow” • “No kinsman could offer comfort there, To a soul left drowning in desolation.”

10. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts “But there isn’t a man on earth so proud, So born to greatness, so bold with his youth, Grown so brave, or so graced by God, That he feels no fear as the sails unfurl, Wondering what Fate has willed and will do.” “The days are gone when the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory; Now there are no rulers, no emperors, no givers of gold, as once there were”

11. The Seafarer – the cold, hard facts “Nothing Golden shakes the Wrath of God.” “He who lives humbly has angels from Heaven to carry him courage and strength an d belief.” “Our thoughts should turn to where our home is, Consider the ways of coming there, Then strive for sure permission for us To rise to that eternal joy”

12. The Seafarer – literary criticism • Some believe that the poem has 2 speakers. One who makes a personal “complaint” and a second who comments on the condition described by the first. • The second speaker emphasizes man’s relationship with the divine rather than one man’s personal plight.

13. The Seafarer – literary criticism • However, Michael Alexander, a literary critic, believes it is not a dialogue. “The poem is a soliloquy: a wraecca that tells of the many winters [he] spent at sea, and the hardship he has borne.”

14. The Seafarer – literary criticism • Rosemary Woolf believes the following: “”…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; …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.”

15. Reading Poetry – in general • Don’t stop at the end of a line, stop at the punctuation mark. The end of the line has to do with the “beat” of the line; it has nothing to do with the “meaning” of the line. Reading to the punctuation mark is called enjambment.