The Wanderer

[texweld77]

explain why The Wanderer is a philosophical poem, using the following passage to support the argument.

Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty

[OrphanPip]

Do your own homework.

[Ecurb]

Or, alternatively, don't do your own homework, then fake illness on the day it is due. (By the way, I think teachers are infatuated with definitions and categories because it is easy to test students’ knowledge of them. On the other hand, being able to recognize categories like “philosophical poem” does little to improve our understanding or appreciation of poetry. I don’t have any solutions: when I taught I did the same thing, especially in big classes where you had to grade students somehow.)

[texweld77]

hey i was just trying to get an idea of which way I should push on this...Im an engineering major and this literature class is kicking my butt...

[Nick Capozzoli]

explain why The Wanderer is a philosophical poem, using the following passage to support the argument.

Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty

I take from this and your other posts that you are reading Anglo-Saxon poetry (in translation) for some sort of lit course and you want some help understanding the poetry. I don't think LNF has any policy against providing such help on this forum, just because you are taking a class in college. Of course you will have to study your reading assignments, take your own exams, and write your assigned essays and term papers. I don't think OrphanPip intended to be rude, just as I assume you weren't asking for folks here to do your homework or write your papers...

If you are having trouble getting the overall gist of The Wanderer, you could Google the title and you'll get a lot of stuff back. The Wikipedia entry is quite good and will answer a lot of your questions. When I was studying this stuff in college there was no Internet so I had to research what we called "libraries." Or I could do what you are doing by talking to Professors and other students. Since you are an engineering student, I'm sure you are a savvy computer user.

As to your question of what these lines mean, they should be pretty clear. They declare that life and all of the things (wealth, companionship, family) associated with it, no matter how much we may enjoy them, are transitory. You can't depend on these to last. This is a common idea that has been expressed in literature from ancient times and is still expressed. It is usually associated with a strong tone of nostalgia, which is best understood in its literal sense of "pain of remembrance" or perhaps "sense of loss." Most Anglo-Saxon poetry is full of that, and The Wanderer is especially so. The Wanderer has lost his Lord, his comrades, and his family, presumably in battle, and he finds himself wandering as a exile (on the frigid seas, a common Anglo-Saxon image of exiled loneliness, c.f. The Seafarer. All of the Anglo-Saxon poems we have include Christian ideas of a life beyond this world. The Wanderer is a good example.

You can read these poems in translation, but it's best to read them in their original language. the passage you quote:

Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty

Is not an exact translation of the original, which is:

Her bið feoh læne, her bið freond læne,
her bið mon læne, her bið mæg læne,
eal þis eorþan gesteal idel weorþeð!"

This translates to:

Here wealth fades away, here friends fade away,
Here man [i.e. all of us] fades away, here kinsmen fade away,
All this earthen groundwork turns to muck.

You'll note that this differs a bit from the translation you're using in class.

[OrphanPip]

You can read these poems in translation, but it's best to read them in their original language. the passage you quote:

Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty

Is not an exact translation of the original, which is:

Her bið feoh læne, her bið freond læne,
her bið mon læne, her bið mæg læne,
eal þis eorþan gesteal idel weorþeð!"

This translates to:

Here wealth fades away, here friends fade away,
Here man [i.e. all of us] fades away, here kinsmen fade away,
All this earthen groundwork turns to muck.

You'll note that this differs a bit from the translation you're using in class.

The OP's translation is reasonable. Laene is an adjective, so "is transitory" or "is fleeting" is more accurate than "fades away", which would require a verb. Also, maeg is singular, so the meaning is "here kin is fleeting" in a general sense rather than kinsmen, which would have been maegas. The translator in this case seems to think that the original poem might have read mægð (maiden/woman), I don't know enough about the poem to venture whether that is a reasonable editorial choice by the translator. There is a certain poetic sense to the juxtaposition of man and woman in that line. Here "idel" means much the same as idle does today, the earthen foundation (which could just be translated as the Earth if we wanted to be concise) becomes "idel" could reasonably be taken to mean the Earth will stand empty.

[JuniperWoolf]

explain why The Wanderer is a philosophical poem, using the following passage to support the argument.

Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty

You didn't even say please...

[Lokasenna]

explain why The Wanderer is a philosophical poem, using the following passage to support the argument.

Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty

Judging by the threads you've recently created, your tutor has a thing for Old English poetry.

Speaking as someone who teaches Old English literature, this is a very good thing. You seem to be working in translation, which suggests that this is a beginner-level introduction to this fanatastic body of literature. You should, consequently, try to enjoy it and to engage with it yourself. I'm afraid posting up essay questions here on LitNet will not provide you with answers.

The Wanderer in particular is a poem of astonishing beauty and technical accomplishment - it was reading it as an undergraduate that first got me into early medieval literature, and I've made it my life's study as a consequence. I could, and have in the past, lectured on this poem at length, but I have neither time nor inclination. Everything you need to answer the questions you have posed about OE poems is in the poems themselves.

[cacian]

should you start with understanding the title first I would perhaps equate it to why it is similar to the sound of 'wonder' and yet very different in one spelling. I wonder wonders about this particular point myself.
also notice the word/verb 'fleet' how it is repeated four times and which also means boat. here it is used to signal something else as you know.
I first misread it as 'fleeing first. I had to look at the spelling again to make sure. It was easy for me to get carried away thinking it was 'fleeing' I do not know about you or others.
the word 'here' is also repeated four time and symbolise something else too.
so link all that together and see if you can find something philosophical about that.

[Lokasenna]

should you start with understanding the title first I would perhaps equate it to why it is similar to the sound of 'wonder' and yet very different in one spelling. I wonder wonders about this particular point myself.

The title, like the titles of 99% of bits of OE literature, are modern creations. The manuscript that preserves the poem (the Exeter Book) gives no title whatsoever.

also notice the word/verb 'fleet' how it is repeated four times and which also means boat. here it is used to signal something else as you know.
I first misread it as 'fleeing first. I had to look at the spelling again to make sure. It was easy for me to get carried away thinking it was 'fleeing' I do not know about you or others.
the word 'here' is also repeated four time and symbolise something else too.

Your particular brand of 'creative reinterpretation' doesn't apply here - the Old English is clear in its meaning, whatever muddled nonsense you might make of the translation.

so link all that together and see if you can find something philosophical about that.

Good luck with that.

[texweld77]

Thank you all for pointing me in general direction, you all have been more than helpful!

[Nick Capozzoli]

The OP's translation is reasonable. Laene is an adjective, so "is transitory" or "is fleeting" is more accurate than "fades away", which would require a verb. Also, maeg is singular, so the meaning is "here kin is fleeting" in a general sense rather than kinsmen, which would have been maegas. The translator in this case seems to think that the original poem might have read mægð (maiden/woman), I don't know enough about the poem to venture whether that is a reasonable editorial choice by the translator. There is a certain poetic sense to the juxtaposition of man and woman in that line. Here "idel" means much the same as idle does today, the earthen foundation (which could just be translated as the Earth if we wanted to be concise) becomes "idel" could reasonably be taken to mean the Earth will stand empty.

You are correct re "bið læne" being a predicate adjective construction, I took liberties turning it into an equivalent verbal construction. My point was the translation of "mæg" as "woman." It is singular for sure, but if the poet meant "a woman" he would have said so. I think "kin" or "family" in a collective sense is more logical. That's why I chose "kinsmen," though "kin" or "kinfolk" would have been better. I get your excellent point about the "mon"/"maeg" male/female thing, but "mon" could just as easily mean (unrelated) "folk" of either sex and "maeg" kin of either sex.

As regards, "eal þis eorþan gesteal idel weorþeð," you could certainly say that this means that the foundation/basis of the earth becomes empty/useless or whatever you want "idel' to mean. The problem with that is that it is difficult to imagine what an "idle" or "empty" foundation means. Foundations are either strong or weak; they either support their structures or they don't. When they don't, they fail by collapsing in some way under the weight of the structure above them.

You clearly know Old English. The OP was discussing this poem in Modern English translation. It is obvious that knowing OE allows you to discuss the poem in much more depth.

[seaofmilktea]

A bit irrelevant, but isn't WH Auden's The Wanderer based on that poem? We did it in class, and as a preliminary exercise our teacher showed us an Anglosaxon(?)version of The Lord's Prayer. Needless to say the whole class went braindead. I quite liked the classes though. It might be because I was the only one that had any Anglosaxon blood in me apart from the teacher haha) I also learnt about kennings. Who doesn't like Whale roads or heaven candles? ( Reminds me of how words are formed in Chinese actually)