23 pages • 46 minutes read
AnonymousA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The Wanderer bears the burden of immense loss, but within the pagan culture that the Wanderer embodies, that difficult reality is rendered infinitely more difficult because it cannot be explained, save through the ever-fickle workings of chance, represented within Medieval culture by the concept of the Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae. It turns and some flourish, while others perish: “All is wretched in the realm of the earth / The way of fate changes the world under heaven” (Lines 106-07). Great armies rise but then fall, leaving survivors inevitably to question why: “What happened to the horse? What happened to the warrior? What happened to the gift-giver?” (Line 92).
Within the pagan culture, the questions can only be rhetorical. Why has the Wanderer lost his homeland, comrades, and liege? The Wanderer’s lyrical lamentation is expressed by questions he understands can never be answered, save by the logic—or illogic—of fate, leaving him only a difficult life of endurance and stoic acceptance.
In this, the lament of a soldier who has lost everything expands to a wider, universal philosophical posture: Nothing is reliable, achievement is ironic, expectation is pointless, and explanation beggars logic. Sorrow, then, is the inevitable and universal outcome, leaving each person, like the Wanderer, suspended between regret and despair, tormented by memories and haunted by dreams.
By Anonymous
Arabian Nights
Anonymous
Arden of Faversham
Anonymous
A Woman in Berlin
Anonymous
Bible (New Testament): English Standard Version
Anonymous
Bible: Old Testament: English Standard Version
Anonymous
Deuteronomy
Anonymous
Diary of an Oxygen Thief
Anonymous
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
Anonymous
Everyman
Anonymous
Hebrew Bible
Anonymous
Holy Bible
Anonymous
Homeric Hymns
Anonymous
Judith
Anonymous
Laxdaela Saga
Anonymous
Lazarillo De Tormes
Anonymous
Mahabharata
Anonymous
Nibelungenlied
Anonymous
Njals Saga
Anonymous
One Thousand and One Nights
Anonymous
Popol Vuh
Anonymous