Two Old English poems, both in the Crossley-Holland anthology, "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer," are said to be poems about the journey into exile. It would appear that one of these poems takes exile literally: In "The Wanderer," it seems that the narrator has been forced into life on the sea, a life of exile, because he has lost his lord and protector. In "The Seafarer," circumstances seems to be otherwise. This voyager seems to prefer life on the sea, a life of alienation from kin and hearth, to life within the community.
You can make some notes to yourself in the space below; print them to save--otherwise they'll disappear. (When you print, it's a good idea to "sign" and date the material, too.)
These are two of the most written-about of all Old English poems, and you will have no difficulty locating bibliography about them.
Start by checking the books by Greenfield-Calder and Wrenn, but any introduction to Old English literature (there are several still on the shelves) will refer you to articles that will get you started.
Can you find essays that regard either or both poems in the same way, despite the differences we might see between them? Are both seen as "penitential" poems, for example, using the journey for figurative ends as a way to gain redemption? Is one understood to tell us more about seafaring in this Anglo-Saxon period, and so to be more "literal," than another?
This is a link that asks you to investigate the history of literary interpretations of these texts. There is no "right" answer to the "puzzle" presented by either texts, but can you find scholarly articles that suggest that there is, after all, a right way to see either poem?
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