The Poem

'I do not believe there is a coherent story here, nor can I believe one is intended or, in fact, necessary for the appreciation of the poem' (Walker-Pelky 1992)

The Wife's Lament is not a narrative poem. Nothing actually happens during the poem, though it alludes to various past events. These events are not recalled in any chronological sequence. Looked at on the manuscript page, without modern lineation, punctuation and editorial explanation, the poem seems to proceed by accreting commonplace phrases and images of sadness, exile and deprivation. The effect is intense and overwhelming. You'll need to consider whether an Anglo-Saxon audience would have felt the need for what Stanley Fish called 'consistency building', the same need that drives modern readers to uncover a consistent narrative.

A sorrowful speaker will tell a giedd, a tale of hardships experienced for many years but only now at their most intense. These hardships began when the speaker's hlaford went abroad to a location not known to the speaker. Lacking the support and security of this hlaford, the speaker tried to find someone else to provide this support. The hlaford gone, his kinsmen treated the speaker with hostility and compelled the speaker to go elsewhere. The speaker, now alone, lives in a cave or other natural shelter. Such is the cause of the speaker's sorrow.

As the speaker laments this unhappy situation, past events recur as a cause of sorrow: a man, well-suited, but sorrowful, secretive and murderous; a broken vow of togetherness; and a feud. The speaker's present dwelling - in a grove, under an oaktree, in a cave, all in all a dark environment - is also a cause of sorrow. The speaker's mind is detained by the thought that others might enjoy a happier existence. Longing, envy maybe, seizes the speaker.

But the young must sorrow. One should put on a brave face. It's not that bad. The hlaford manages to make his own sources of contentment while abroad, inhabiting an equally hostile environment - covered with frost, loomed over by cliffs and surrounded by water. He too remembers the past. Nostalgia's only natural.