Seafarer (poem)

"The Seafarer" and "The Wanderer" are two Old English poems included in the Exeter Book. These poems can be considered elegies; and tell a first-person story of exile and solitude, contrasting the hard times of the present with evocation of a glorious past: memory becomes a source of consolation. "The Seafarer" is a 124 line poem that deals with the experience of an outsider. Indeed the poet's condition of exile has many parallels with the modern idea of the artist's estrangement from society. It begins with a lament of suffering until the speaker understands that he prefers to live a life of hardship on the waves rather than having security of land that he considers a pointless vanity.
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