The Wanderer and the Seafarer

The Wanderer and The Seafarer are both poems centered around loneliness and exile. The Wanderer tells a story of a past warrior and of his past experiences with his fellow warrior men and also of his lord. Forced into exile by fate he now roams the sea troubled by memories of feasts with his lord and comrades. The Seafarer is a poem told from the point of view of an old seaman who is describing how hard life was at sea compared to life on land. As the poem progresses, the speaker begins to explain his yearning for the sea and to prefer it over life on land. Both The Wanderer and The Seafarer share a similar tone created by each author. These tones create a specific mood reflected inside of each reader. In The Wanderer, the tone enforces a strong feeling of displacement and sorrow. For example in lines 19-21 the exile says “I have had to take my own heart - often wretched, cut off from my homeland, far from dear kinsmen - and bind in it fetters,”. The man in the story recalls his past experiences with his fellow warrior men and his lord who provided him with great feasts. He is experiencing sorrow because he no longer has these things and is simply lost alone at sea. Consequently, the reader sympathizes with the lonely wanderer and the mood created is slightly melancholy and despondent towards him. In The Seafarer, the tone is increasingly hopeful of an eternal life. This is exemplified In lines 117-124. This creates a more at ease and reassuring mood for the audience. The hopeful tone in The Seafarer is very different from the constant sorrowful tone in The Wanderer.
Although many things about these two poems are different, there are also many things that are similar. The tone in both The Wanderer and The Seafarer are mournful and sorrowful. Both poets explain that the men in the stories have been exiled from their past life and are reflecting upon it. The mood of each poem is similar for the audience because of this similarity. The authors of both poems work