10 Background: The Wanderer

THE WANDERER

Author unknown

At least late tenth century, possibly much earlier

The Wanderer  is  found  only in the manuscript known as the Exeter  Book,  which  was  copied in the late tenth century. The 115- line poem follows the usual Anglo- Saxon pattern of short alliterative half-lines separated by a caesura (pause). The wanderer (or “earth- stepper”) has buried his lord (his “gold-friend”) and finds himself alone in the world. Members of a lord’s comitatus, or war band, were expected to die alongside their leader in battle; the wanderer is looking for a new lord as he suffers through the uncertainty, loneliness, and physical hardships of exile. The poem begins and ends with references to Christianity, with a kenning near the end of the poem with God as “Shaper of Men;” the only certainty that the speaker has is that there is a “safe home” waiting for him in heaven. The rest of the poem focuses on what he has lost. Like The Ruin and The Seafarer, also found in the Exeter Book, The Wanderer is what is known as an “ubi sunt” poem (Latin for “where has”). In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers, Aragorn recites a poem about Eorl the Young that begins “Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?” (142; the movie transfers the speech to King Theoden), which was drawn directly from The Wanderer’s “Where has the horse gone? Where is the man?” Because of its theme, The Wanderer is usually classified as a type of elegy, or lament for what has been lost.

Bibliography

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Directed by Peter Jackson. New Line Cinema and Wingnut Films. 2002.