The Wanderer is an anonymous Old English poem found in the famous tenth-century Exeter Book. Most of the poem is spoken from the perspective of a warrior who has been separated from the joys of aristocratic hall life: the friendship, the treasure, and the protection of a lord. Traditionally termed an ‘elegy’, I prefer Kathleen Davis’s suggestion that the intimate, reflective nature of the poem makes ‘lyric’ a more appropriate label. (See Kathleen Davis, ‘Old English lyrics: the poetics of experience’, in The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature, ed. Clare A. Lees, Cambridge, 2013.)
Description by Nik Gunn.
Read more translations of poems from the Exeter Book published in Ancient Exchanges here.