The Wanderer is an Old English poem. I posted my own translation in a fit of pride a few days ago - it is here. It comes in the Exeter Book, which contains a fairly mixed bag of poems of all sorts and lengths. It is one of the better known Old English poems - people like it, but have never really agreed about it. As far as I know (and I've put some effort into knowing) my dissertation is the first scholarly work to draw up a distinct connection with Ecclesiastes. For a while people claimed that it was a pagan poem with a couple of Christian lines shoved in at the end to make it safe - but the current general opinion is that it's a single rather than composite work with a unified purpose (whatever that purpose might be). I think it's likely to be a meditative text inspired and influenced specifically by Ecclesiastes and intended as an aid to wisdom and understanding of God.
I'll have to look up the lyrics of this U2 song... maybe they got there before I did...
Comments 2
Reply
The Wanderer is an Old English poem. I posted my own translation in a fit of pride a few days ago - it is here. It comes in the Exeter Book, which contains a fairly mixed bag of poems of all sorts and lengths. It is one of the better known Old English poems - people like it, but have never really agreed about it. As far as I know (and I've put some effort into knowing) my dissertation is the first scholarly work to draw up a distinct connection with Ecclesiastes. For a while people claimed that it was a pagan poem with a couple of Christian lines shoved in at the end to make it safe - but the current general opinion is that it's a single rather than composite work with a unified purpose (whatever that purpose might be). I think it's likely to be a meditative text inspired and influenced specifically by Ecclesiastes and intended as an aid to wisdom and understanding of God.
I'll have to look up the lyrics of this U2 song... maybe they got there before I did...
ælfgifu
Reply
Leave a comment