The Wanderer (Old English recitation)

'The Wanderer' has long been regarded as one of the finest poems of the Anglo-Saxon period, though there has been no general agreement on its theme, structure or genre. It is found on folios 76b-78a of the Exeter Book (Codex Exoniensis), an anthology compiled towards the end of the tenth century which contains the most varied collection of poetry that has survived from the Anglo-Saxon period. 'The Wanderer' is one of a group of Old English poems similar in elegiac tone and lyrical feeling. Without going too far into a scholarly interpretation of the poem's themes and content, it would be fair to say that the speaker is not so much saddened by what he sees in the world, but that he is cognisant of the fact that the things of this world are calculated to make him sad. All people depart. Creation daily decays. Dwellings are swept by snow and the ones we love are buried in holes beneath the ground, only to be forgotten. The personal elegy broadens and becomes an elegy for all. But among