Old English Lyrical Poetry Essay Example for Free

Old English Lyrical Poetry EssayThe second part allegorically represents that the troubles of the seaman are the troubles of earthly life and the call of the ocean is the call in the soul to go to its true home with God. The metrical composition is remarkable for (as Legouis puts) The somber and violent pictures it gives of northern seas in which sufferings from cold mingles with the pains of water and wind. The Ruined Burg or the Ruin- * It is an elegy not for the misfortune of a person but for a place. * The unknown poet laments for the vanished glory of a great city, in all probability the Roman built city Bath, which was turned into debris by the Anglo-Saxon aggression, Conquest and settlement. * The poem can be divided in three parts- ) primary the poet describes the ancient gorgeous buildings now deserted and rootless and tottering. b) Next he goes to muse on its golden past and its adorned and crowded noble princess and warriors. c) at long last he contrasts the r unions present with the pompous past. * The poem is remarkable for its nostalgic melancholy and for its descriptive nature. Deors Lament * It is a poem of 42 lines, divided into stanzas and it is include in the Exeter Book. * It is the lamentation of Deor, a scop who after years of service has been supplanted by another minstrel, Herrenda.Finally he consoles himself by considering the misfortune of others. * It is written in strophic haoma throughout and each strophe ends with a refrain. * There are altogether seven sections in the poem. * In the first five sections, the mentions the adversities that befall others but ends with a detect of consolation in the sixth section he speaks of the misfortune of mankind in general. And in the seventh section the poet mentions his own misfortune. In this way the poem is logically well-knit. It remains plainly heathenic in sentiment. The Wifes Complaint * It is a kind of monologue. * The narrator is a woman whose husband has left her and go ne(a) to the sea. She is forced to live in an old dwelling dug out of earth under oak by her husbands relatives. She sitting under the tree laments everywhere her miserable lot all day. Friendless and fore shaken she bewails her loneliness and the vows of love that have come to nothing. * The poem is rich in melancholy feeling. The married mans Message * It exists in fragments.A good many lines of this poem are lost for ever. * An exiled husband sends his message to his wife by means of garner carved on a piece of wood. The wood tells the wife its own life story and its journey in a ship. It tells her that though the circumstances allow her husband out of home he has been able to gain a position of wealth and dignity. Finally it bids her to join with her husband in the place of exile. * To some(a) critics the poem is a sequel to The Wifes Complaint but some would to see it as an independent poem.