"The Wanderer" Synthesis

"The Wanderer" and C.S. Lewis

            The Old English poem “The Wanderer” conveys characteristics of typical Anglo-Saxon oral poetry that would have made the poem easier to listen to, teaching those listening about the wanderer’s struggles and need for God in his life as he grows spiritually. 

            The poem “The Wanderer” contains literary devices of repetition, caesura, and alliteration, all of which were literary devices characteristic of Anglo-Saxon oral poetry.  These three literary devices draw listeners in without causing them to become bored with the topic at hand.  The unknown author of “The Wanderer” used repetition in lines 66-70 of the poem.  He writes, “The wise man is patient,\ not too hot-hearted, nor too quick tongued,\ nor a warrior too weak, nor too foolhardy,\ neither frightened nor fain, nor yet too wealth-greedy, nor ever of boasts too eager, before he knows enough” (“The Wanderer” 66-70).  The use of repetition allows the audience to follow along easily with the list of characteristics of things a wise man knows not to do, as the audience anticipates what will come next in the list.

            Moreover, caesura appears again and again throughout the poem (similar to Beowulf).  For example, the poet writes, “So the earth-stepper spoke, mindful of hardships,\ Of fierce slaughter, the fall of kin:\ Oft must I, alone, the hour before dawn\ lament my care” (“The Wanderer 6-9).  The breaks between “spoke” and “mindful”, “slaughter” and “the fall”, “alone” and “the hour” are the caesura.  Caesura by definition is a pause in a line of verse dictated by natural speech rhythm.  Because Anglo-Saxon poetry was spoken orally as a recitation to an audience, by using Caesura, the audience could easily understand what was being said because the poem’s rhythm sounded like conversation they might have in daily life.

            And lastly, alliteration gives this poem a rhythmic feel while quickening the pace at which the poem would be spoken.  In the Old English, alliteration was always better preserved, but alliteration can still be found in this translation of the poem.  Phrases and lines such as “Far from kin—fasten with fetters” (“The Wanderer 21) and “Spirits of seafarers bring but seldom\ known speech and song” (“The Wanderer 55-56) give the poem variety in pace that does not allow one reciting this poem to recite it in a monotonous tone but in a manner that creates excitement and retains the interest of the audience.

            Repetition, caesura, and alliteration are all necessary to hold the rapture of the audience because the plot line of “The Wanderer” is one of importance to all Christians who lived during the Middle Ages or even today, as the poet is elaborating upon one man’s understanding of his need for spiritual growth and need for God Himself—needs most Christians struggle with.  In both The Pilgrim’s Regress and “The Wanderer”, John and the speaker respectively are on journeys in which they are searching for something to fill the void in their lives.  As the speaker in “The Wanderer” concludes, “Well will it be\ to him who seeks favor, refuge and comfort,\ from the Father in heaven, where all fastness stands” (“The Wanderer” 115-117).  The speaker has been exiled and is searching for something that can provide him with the comforts he wants to live a better life.  The only thing that can fulfill this wish, he concludes, is a faith in God himself.  Similarly in The Pilgrim’s Regress, John goes on a physical journey in which he comes to the conclusion that God and Christianity is the only thing that can fill the void he has been feeling since he first saw the island in the distance as a young boy (“It seemed to him that a mist which hung at the far end of the wood had parted for a moment, and through the rift he had seen a calm sea, and in the sea an island” (Lewis 8)).  This glimpse of the island is what he wants forever, though he learns through his journey that “the pain and longing were changed and all unlike what they had been of old: for humility was mixed with their wildness” (Lewis 170).  As he says, “it began to seem well to him that the Island should be different from his desires, and so different that, if he had known it, he would not have sought it” (Lewis 170). 

            The Great Divorce also contains a physical journey that represents spiritual growth as “The Wanderer” and The Pilgrim’s Regress do.  The narrator in The Great Divorce, a ghost, takes a journey to the outskirts of heaven.  There he realizes that he doesn’t want to return to what the other ghosts consider the safety of the limbo they currently reside in.  He wants the spiritual security being with God provides.  This spiritual growth is represented by Carroll’s use of imagery as opposed reflections of the poet of “The Wanderer” on the speaker’s thoughts to demonstrate the speaker’s spiritual growth.  In The Great Divorce, the speaker has an easier time walking on the sharp grass and becoming accustomed to the bright light as he learns more about how he wants God.  He also grows larger.  As Lewis writes, “He went down on his hands and knees.  I did the same (how it hurt my knees!) and presently saw that he had plucked a blade of grass.  Using its thin end as a pointer, he made me see…a crack in the soil so small that I could not have identified it without this aid… ‘But through a crack no bigger than that ye certainly came.’” (Lewis 137).