The
Seafarer(Short)
"The Seafarer" was first discovered in the Exeter
Book, a hand-copied manuscript containing the largest known collection of
Old English poetry, which is kept at Exeter Cathedral, England. "The
Seafarer" has its origins in the Old English period of English literature,
450-1100, a time when very few people knew how to read or write. Even in its
translated form, "The Seafarer" provides an accurate portrait of the
sense of stoic endurance, suffering, loneliness, and spiritual yearning so
characteristic of Old English poetry. "The Seafarer" is divisible
into two sections, the first elegiac and the second didactic. "The
Seafarer" can be read as two poems on separate subjects or as one poem
moving between two subjects. Moreover, the poem can be read as a dramatic
monologue, the thoughts of one person, or as a dialogue between two people. The
first section is a painfully personal description of the suffering and
mysterious attractions of life at sea. In the second section, the speaker makes
an abrupt shift to moral speculation about the fleeting nature of fame,
fortune, and life itself, ending with an explicitly Christian view of God as
wrathful and powerful. In this section, the speaker urges the reader to forget
earthly accomplishments and anticipate God's judgment in the afterlife. The
poem addresses both pagan and Christian ideas about overcoming this sense of
suffering and loneliness. Moreover, "The Seafarer" can be thought of
as an allegory discussing life as a journey and the human condition as that of
exile from God on the sea of life. Whatever themes one finds in the poem,
"The Seafarer" is a powerful account of a sensitive poet's
interaction with his environment.
Q. What is elegy give reference to the
text.?
Answer:
"The Seafarer"
was first discovered in the Exeter Book, a hand-copied manuscript
containing the largest known collection of Old English poetry, which is kept at
Exeter Cathedral, England.
An allegory is a
figurative narrative or description either in prose or in verse that conveys a
veiled moral meaning.The seafarer is an old English poem of 124 lines. It is
also called an Anglo- Saxon elegy. The critics of are of different opinions
about its structures & themes.
"The Seafarer" is
divisible into two sections, The first section is a painfully personal description
of the suffering and mysterious attractions of life at sea. In the second
section, the speaker makes an abrupt shift to moral speculation about the
fleeting nature of fame, fortune, and life itself, ending with an explicitly
Christian view of God as wrathful and powerful.
The
seafarer gives an account of his life of hardships & miseries on the sea, “
Sitting day long at an oar’s end clenched against clinging sorrow breast
drought I have borne & bitterness to.” Speaking allegorically the sufferings
& hardships of the Seafarer are symbolical for the whole human race.
Finally,
the Seafarer surrenders to the Christian faith & upholds that only trust in
heavenly father can make a human soul see its redemption or salvation. God is
our real abode. In him we must trust & to him we must surrender. God, the
Almighty is our real protector. So, the life of the Seafarer , his belief in
seeking refuge in God has been allegorically portrayed in the poem by the poet.
2. Justify to your answer allegory, simile
and metaphor of poem “ the seafarer”.
Answer: "The Seafarer" was first discovered in the Exeter
Book, a hand-copied manuscript containing the largest known collection of
Old English poetry, which is kept at Exeter Cathedral, England.
Allegory: An allegory is a figurative narrative or description either in
prose or in verse that conveys a veiled moral meaning. The seafarer is an old
English poem of 124 lines. It is also called an Anglo- Saxon elegy. The critics
of are of different opinions about its structures & themes. the whole
poem as an allegorical representation of human exile from God on the sea of
life.
Simile:
Anglo-Saxon poetry is marked by the comparative rarity of
similes. This is a particular feature of Anglo-Saxon verse style. As a
consequence of both its structure and the rapidity with which its images are
deployed it is unable to effectively support the expanded simile.
Metaphor: In a metaphor(Line-8-9) that makes the cold and frost into
shackles, the speaker describes his feet as bound and fettered by them. (Line
10) The speaker describes his cares as "seething" about his heart in
an implicit metaphor that turns them into heat or fire.
1. This tale is true and mine. it
tells
How the sea took me, swept me back
And forth in sorrow and fear and pain
showed me suffering in a hundred ships
In a thousand ports and in me,
Answer: The
first 1-5 line has taken from the poem of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual
meaning of this line are: I can make a true song about me myself, tell my
travels, how I often endured days of
struggle, troublesome times (1-3)
How I have suffered grim sorrow at heart, have
known in the ship many worries [abodes of care]. (4-5)
Explanation:
Right away in line 2 with the verb
"endured," the poem lets us know that the speaker's "true
song" is no walk in the park, since this is a word that connotes
suffering. And line 3 confirms our suspicions: this song is about trouble and a
struggle.
The more literal translation of
"worries" as "abodes of care" suggests that the speaker
inhabits not just a ship, but also a psychological space of sadness. He carries
his suffering around inside himself, almost as if his body is the ship itself.
This sorrow overwhelms him so much that he feels like it's an actual place in
which he dwells – an "abode."
2. The
hailstorms flew.
The only Sound was the roaring sea,
The freezing waves.
Answer: This (17-19) line has taken
from the poem of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this line are:
hail flew in showers.
here I heard nothing but the roaring sea, the ice-cold wave.
Explanation:
·
The speaker has already told us a lot about how he felt when he was on
the sea, both physically and emotionally. Now he describes what he heard. And
it ain't much – just the roar of the ocean and the cries of seabirds. There's
not a human sound around.
3.The song of the swan
Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the
sea-fow
The death- noise of birds instead of
laughter
The mewing of gulls instead of mead
Answer:
This (17-19) line has taken from the poem
of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this line are:
At times the swan's song
I took to myself as pleasure, the gannet's noise
and the voice of the curlew
instead
of the laughter of men, the singing gull instead
of the drinking of mead.
Explanation:
The Speaker did take pleasure in the
"swan's song," so at least there was something sort of pleasant about
this whole experience. But still, those bird-cries are no substitute for the
pleasures he could enjoy in the mead hall (a place to eat and drink) among
friends.
4. Night would blacken; it would snow from
the north;
Forest bound the earth and hail would fall
The coldest seeds.
Answer:
This (31-33) line has taken from the poem
of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this line are:
The shadows of night
darkened, it
snowed from the north, frost bound the ground, hail fell on
the earth, coldest of grains.
Explanation:
Just when you thought the
weather couldn't get any worse, it does. Night falls, bringing with it frost,
snow, and hail. Instead of just saying that it gets dark, the speaker tells us
that the "shadows of night darkened," which sounds far more ominous
if you ask us.
The speaker personifies frost by saying it
"bound" the ground, just like it bound his feet in line 9.
We've also got another metaphor here,
"coldest of grains," which describes hail. The Anglo-Saxon word for
grain here is corna, which means corn, seed, or berry. It's something you eat,
and it's supposed to give you nourishment. Here, though, instead of feeding the
speaker, the grain torments him.
5. Thus the joys of God
are Fervent with life, where life itself
Fades quickly into the earth.
Answer: This line has taken from the
poem of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this line are:
Indeed hotter for me are
the joys of the Lord than
this dead
life fleeting on the land
Explanation:
Apparently, the joys of the Lord are
"hotter" for him than life on land. Calling the joys of the Lord
"hot" in a poem so focused on the misery of being cold is high
praise, indeed. Plus, when he talks about the joys of the Lord, he's comparing
them to life on land. Could this mean that the joys of the lord are to be found
at sea? Or could the sea be a metaphor for the joys of the Lord?
6. The days are gone
when the kingdoms of earth flourished in
glory
Now there are no rules, no emperors
No givers of gold, as once there were
when wonderful things were worked among
them
And they lived in lordly magnificence
Those powers have vanished, those pleasure
are dead
The weakest survives and the world
continues
kept spinning by toil. All glory is
tarnished
The world's honor ages and shrinks.
Answer:
This (80-89) lines has taken from the poem
of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this lines are:
The days are gone of all
the glory
of the kingdoms of the earth; there are not now
kings, nor Caesars, nor givers of gold, as once there were when they, the greatest, among
themselves performed valorous deeds and with a most lordly majesty lived.
All that old guard is
gone
and the revels are over—the weaker ones now
dwell and hold the world, enjoy it
through their sweat. The glory is fled, the nobility of the world
ages and
grows sere, as now does every man throughout the world.
Explanation:
·
After claiming that winning fame is the only way to live forever, the
speaker implies that it has gotten a lot harder to do. Why? Because the glory
days are over, folks.
·
A little history lesson might be useful, here, to give us some context:
The Anglo-Saxons lived among the ruins of the Roman occupation of England.
Unfortunately, they no longer possessed the know-how to rebuild. So everyday
they were surrounded by the physical evidence of what the speaker says here:
that "there are not now kings, nor Caesars […] as once there were."
·
Mentioning the loss of "givers of gold" implies that
contemporary lords may not be as wealthy as lords once were. This loss confirms
the speaker's belief, expressed in line 66, that the "riches of the
world" do not last forever. Everything fades away.
·
In contrast to the disdain with which the speaker describes the worldly,
wealthy "city-dwellers," here he seems completely in awe of his
ancestors, describing them as living in "lordly majesty," almost like
gods. Their wealth, however, shows just how dire the current state of affairs
is. With no more kingdoms of the earth, perhaps he'll have to shift his focus
to the kingdom of heaven, where things just might be looking up.
Basically, our guy is
telling us the world has gone to pot. There are no longer noble kings or glory.
We're left with only weak rulers as we waste away.
A lot of the language in
these lines reminds us of lines 75-80, in which the speaker described the
achievement of eternal life among heavenly Hosts through fame and brave deeds.
Repeated words include duguþ (Host, or guard), dream (joy, revel), and blaed
(glory). These words are all associated with the departed kings, linking them
to the eternal life with the angels.
Though these departed
kingdoms may possess eternal life because of their renown, the situation now is
different: "weaker" ones walk the earth, and the people who are still
left now enjoy the world only "through their sweat."
What's that all about?
For one thing, it tells us that now, humans have to work much harder than those
who came before them. But this line may also be a reference to the Fall of Man.
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God punished them and all of
humanity by forcing the sons of man to work for their food by the "sweat
of their brow" (Genesis 3:19). Way to get Biblical, dude.
The translator translates
the Anglo-Saxon verb searian, which means to wither or dry up, to "grows
sere." This verb compares the decay of these earthly kingdoms to the
wilting of an unwatered plant. Here, though, it's the world's nobility that
"grows sere." Can the world's nobility really wither away with time?
According to this guy, absolutely.
This passage compares the
aging and withering of the world's glory to the aging of a single individual.
Just as every person grows old and wastes away, so does the glory of the world.
So if we're all doomed to this fate, is there anything we can do about it?
7. Death leaps at the fools who forget
their God.
Answer:
This line has taken from the poem of “The
Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this lines are:
A fool is the one who
does not fear his Lord – death comes to him unprepared.
Explanation:
This passage says that
the fool who doesn't fear God is not prepared for death when it finally does
come. We might take this lack of fear to mean something like arrogance or
pride, which popped up in lines 26-30 with the poem's description of the
"proud city-dweller."
8. Praise the Holy Grace of him who
honored us,
Eternal, unchanging creator
of earth. Amen.
Answer:
This lines(122-125) has taken from the
poem of “The Seafarer”. Here the actual meaning of this lines are:
Let there be thanks to
God that
he adored us, the Father of Glory, the Eternal Lord,
for all time. Amen.
- Although this passage
is a simple prayer of thanks, we might also read it as an explanation for
the existence of the "true home" of the previous lines: God
adored mankind, so he made a home for them.
- God is the
"Father of Glory" and the "Eternal Lord" in ealle tid
– "for all time." He's a stable guy, this God, and this
stability is the ultimate contrast with all the relentless motion of the
seas that we've seen throughout the first half of the poem.
- And of course, how
could we forget the "Amen"? The inclusion of this word tells us
that we might read this poem, or at least its last few lines, as a kind of
prayer, which leaves no doubt about the undercurrent of religious meaning
that's been flowing throughout the lines. Turns out our seafarer is a
pretty pious guy.
