Review The Seafarer poem. Discover when the Anglo-Saxon poem was written, read a summary and analysis, find the themes, and examine what makes The Seafarer an elegy.
Updated: 11/21/2023
The Seafarer | Summary, Themes & Analysis
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Frequently Asked Questions
What literary devices are in ''The Seafarer?''
The Seafarer uses rhythm and alliteration to create a musical property when performed aloud. It also uses symbolism to portray the ocean as the physical world where humanity looks for God.
What is the main theme of ''The Seafarer?''
The central theme is that salvation is not found in the physical but rather in the spiritual. Glory, honor, and riches will not matter to a spirit once it leaves the body, and only obedience and commitment to God can save a soul.
Why was the Seafarer exiled?
The Seafarer exiled himself to continue looking for the thing his heart desired. He could understand it, but he knew it had to be in the ocean.
What does ''The Seafarer'' represent?
The Seafarer represents humanity searching for meaning. He knows it doesn't lie in material things on land, so he travels to the oceans. However, the ocean can offer no comfort or salvation.
Who originally wrote ''The Seafarer?''
The original author is unknown. However, the first copy was found in the Exeter Book, a handwritten manuscript filled with Old English poetry.
Table of Contents
ShowThe Seafarer is an Old English poem written by an anonymous author. Most scholars assume the poem is narrated by an old seafarer reminiscing about his life. The seafarer in the poem describes life at sea as dangerous and solitary, while the life on land is filled with family and friends, and comfort.
The poem's ending stops mentioning the sea but instead describes the journeymen must take to reach heaven finally.
When was The Seafarer Written?
There is no clear answer as to when was The Seafarer written. The first copy was found in The Exeter Book; a manuscript now kept at Exert Cathedral in England. The poem was originally written in Old English, also called Germanic English, and dates to the Anglo-Saxon period. The Exeter Book was written around 940 CE, meaning the poem was composed sometime after 450 CE and the book's publication.
Ezra Pound translated the poem into Modern English, though many other writers have created their own translations over the years. Pound's translation, though, removes many of the religious elements from the original poem.
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The Seafarer summary must look at the poem as two separate poems combined. The first section speaks of the sea, while the second speaks of the journey to heaven.
At the poem's beginning, the narrator asks the audience to understand and believe his revelation. While he never explains why he chose to become a sailor, the narrator describes life at sea as very difficult. He talks about the cold and how it affects his body and soul. Feeling isolated compared to those on land, the narrator continues with his trade, eventually losing the ability to recognize even the beauty of bird calls.
The narrator states that those who live on land cannot understand the plight of a sailor, but the narrator also claims he cannot explain why he chose the life he did yet searches for a home and friendship. However, despite these searches, the narrator admits that a traveler on the sea will never truly find comfort.
When summer approaches, the narrator finds himself drawn to the sea again despite knowing the loneliness it holds for him. He exiles himself from humanity to continue his wandering once again.
The second half of the poem becomes more theological.
The narrator mentions how death will come for everyone, and no one knows how it will come for them specifically. Per old Anglo-Saxon beliefs, the narrator wishes for glory, but he also says that the days of honor and glory are no longer around, and victories must be won in different ways aside from combat.
Soon, the narrator laments the need some have for fame and admits that God will not forgive sin at any price. God, the speaker says, must be feared, and his commandments must be followed. As the poem nears its end, the narrator asks the audience to remain humble and courageous. God and fate, the narrator says, are more powerful than anyone or anything. In contrast to the misery of living and working at sea in the first part, the last part of the poem speaks of the joy and love that await the righteous in the afterlife.
The poem ends with a final song and a simple "Amen."
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The Seafarer analysis needs to look at both halves of the poem, each distinct but important to the final message.
The ocean in the poem symbolizes the world outside our homes. The narrator makes various distinctions between those who have the comforts of a home and family and the cold, miserable life of a sailor. Those who live on land and never explore are happy, but they cannot understand the plight of those who, like the narrator, seek something else besides the comforts of food and love.
The first part seems only to show the wanderlust of a seafarer but combined with the second half, it is a poem trying to tell others that they will never find what they are looking for in material things. The narrator spends his life at sea looking for something he cannot describe yet hating the experience. In the second half, he admits that the thing that people seek is God, though they may not know it.
The Seafarer is a sapiential poem, a type of poem also found in the Old Testament and sometimes called the Poetic Books. These books deal with the spiritual life of the Israelites. The Poetic Books and The Seafarer strive to teach through story and song.
What Makes The Seafarer an Elegy?
An elegy is a poem typically performed at a funeral to lament the passing of a loved one. No one dies in the poem, but what makes The Seafarer an elegy is the mourning it shows for the world and the things people will do to achieve their goals. The narrator is lamenting humanity, not a singular person, and expressing melancholy. It is much closer to another use of the word "eulogy" since it doesn't need to be a funeral poem but rather a poem for general sadness.
The Seafarer Themes
The Seafarer themes are tied with religion and seeking salvation and comfort in a cold, hard world.
Life's Purpose: The people on land are happy and seek nothing more than continuing their lives with their loved ones and comforts. However, the narrator and other seafarers seek something and look to the ocean to find it since they do not believe they will find it on land. The narrator explains that these aimless wanderings for life's purpose are not fully understood by most.
Alienation: Over and over again, the narrator mentions how those on land cannot understand the seafarer's drive to be on the ocean. Living at sea is a cold, hard life. It is lonely. This feeling is overwhelming, both because it makes it seem like the sailor's goal is always out of reach and separates the sailor from those who seem to be already happy.
Suffering: The suffering at sea seems pointless in the poem's first half. Nothing is gained by going to sea, yet the drive cannot be ignored. It almost seems like suffering for suffering's sake, and before the second half, it seems as though that pain and longing are the best humanity can hope to achieve in its quest to find meaning.
Nature: Nature is depicted as both caring and cruel. For the most part, the ocean is cold and hard. Summer brings warmth and joy, but it doesn't last. Even when it provides, it cannot give the narrator what he wants. And the cold sea, which provides him with nothing, still feels like a better option because it at least makes him feel as though he is doing something to find the source of his wanderlust.
Spiritual Journey: The poem says a spiritual journey is not physical. Those who seek to find God via journeys, battle, glory, or other means will find the quest futile. The narrator says that being humble, fearing God, and following commandments are needed to satiate the wanderlust and find peace.
Death: In the tradition of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the narrator states that death can come in many ways, including in battle. However, he also states that death is liberating, as a soul without a body cares not for fame, and the riches one gathers in life will not pass on to the other side. Similar to how the poem shows a spiritual journey as not requiring anything physical, the narrator indicates that death will instantly get rid of anything material, so material needs are not so important for the afterlife.
Alliteration in The Seafarer
Like much Old English poetry, The Seafarer uses rhythm and alliteration. While some of this is lost in translation, the original Old English was written with particular stresses, four in each line. There is a slight pause between the first two stresses and between the last two stresses. A stress is where the emphasis is placed on a syllable. For example, the word "table" has a stress in its first syllable, as does the word "fruitcake." The stress in the word "decided" is in the middle syllable. When stresses are appropriately spaced, they create rhythm.
In The Seafarer, the stresses break up the lines, and the alliteration creates an effect not unlike waves when read out loud.
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The Seafarer, an anonymous poem in The Exeter Book originally written in Old English, also known as Germanic English, is an elegy lamenting humanity's search for meaning. It is a poem that expresses grief or mourning. The poem dates back to the Anglo-Saxon period. The narrator, an old sailor, is unhappy during his travels because he is often scared, cold, and lonely despite continuously seeking the ocean. The poem concludes that humanity's wanderlust and need to find something it cannot define is the search for God. The poem compares the ocean to the fruitless search for salvation in material things.
Its rhyme and alliteration, combined with the stresses in each line make it musical. Stresses emphasize certain words and create rhythm like music when spaced properly. The religious overtones make it a later version of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament.
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Video Transcript
Background
You know what it's like when you're writing an essay, and you feel like you're totally alone with this challenge and don't know where to go with it? The way you feel navigating that essay is kind of how the narrator of The Seafarer feels as he navigates the sea. As in, 'What's the point of it all?' and 'Will I survive this dilemma?'
The earliest written version of The Seafarer exists in a manuscript from the tenth century called The Exeter Book. This book contains a collection of Anglo-Saxon poems written in Old English. In case you're uncertain of what Old English looks like, here's an example.
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The poem probably existed in an oral tradition before being written down in The Exeter Book. Although we don't know who originally created this poem, the most well-known translation is by Ezra Pound. Pound was a popular American poet during the Modern Period, which was from about the 1900's to the 1960's.
Poem Summary
If you've ever been fishing or gone on a cruise, then your experience on the water was probably much different from that of this poem's narrator. He begins by stating that he is telling a true story about his travels at sea. Before even giving the details, he emphasizes that the voyages were dangerous and he often worried for his safety.
The narrator often took the nighttime watch, staying alert for rocks or cliffs the waves might toss the ship against. Imagine how difficult this would be during a time with no GPS, or even electric lights. Aside from his fear, he also suffers through the cold--such cold that he feels frozen to his post.
But, the poem is not merely about his normal feelings at being at sea on a cold night. Despite his anxiety and physical suffering, the narrator relates that his true problem is something else. He tells how profoundly lonely he is. How he spends all this time at sea, listening to birdsong instead of laughing and drinking with friends. And, it's not just that, he feels he has no place back on the land. He keeps on traveling, looking for that perfect place to lay anchor.
Themes
Overall, The Seafarer is a pretty somber piece. And, true to that tone, it takes on some weighty themes. One theme in the poem is finding a place in life.
Have you ever just wanted to get away from it all? The narrator of this poem has traveled the world to foreign lands, yet he's continually unhappy. He's jealous of wealthy people, but he comforts himself by saying they can't take their money with them when they die. Even when he finds a nice place to stop, he eventually flees the land, and people, again for the lonely sea.
Another theme of the poem is death and posterity. Our seafarer is constantly thinking about death. He fears for his life as the waves threaten to crash his ship. He shivers in the cold, with ice actually hanging from his clothes. The only abatement he sees to his unending travels is the end of life. He believes that the wealthy underestimate the importance of their riches in life, since they can't hold onto their riches in death. Instead he says that the stories of your deeds that will be told after you're gone are what's important. He says that's how people achieve life after death. This is posterity. Perhaps this is why he continues to brave the sea.
Finally, there is a theme of spirituality in this poem. Towards the end of the poem, the narrator also sees hope in spirituality. In addition to our deeds gaining us fame, he states they also gain us favor with God. It's possible to read the entire poem as an extended metaphor for a spiritual journey, as well as the literal journey.
Analysis
The Seafarer is a type of poem called an elegy. Elegies are poems that mourn or express grief about something, often death. In this poem, the narrator grieves the impermanence of life--the fact that he and everything he knows will eventually be gone.
However, some scholars argue the poem is a sapiential poem, meaning a poem that imparts religious wisdom. Part of the debate stems from the fact that the end of the poem is so different from the first hundred lines. In fact, Pound and others who translated the poem, left out the ending entirely (i.e., the part that turns to contemplation on an eternal afterlife).
If you look at the poem in its original Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon), you can analyze the form and meter. Here is a sample:
Mæg ic be me sylfum / soðgied wrecan,
siþas secgan, / hu ic geswincdagum
earfoðhwile / oft þrowade,
bitre breostceare / gebiden hæbbe,
Okay, admittedly that probably looks like gibberish to you. But within that 'gibberish,' you may have noticed that the lines don't seem to all have the same number of syllables. However, they do each have four stresses, which are emphasized syllables. Each line is also divided in half with a pause, which is called a caesura.
Like a lot of Anglo-Saxon poetry, The Seafarer uses alliteration of the stressed syllables. This is when syllables start with the same sound. Every first stress after the caesura starts with the same letter as one of the stressed syllables before the caesura. Look at the example. You can see this alliteration in the lines, 'Mæg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan' and 'bitre breostceare gebiden hæbbe.'
Lesson Summary
The Seafarer is an Anglo-Saxon elegy that is composed in Old English and was written down in The Exeter Book in the tenth century. It's been translated multiple times, most notably by American poet Ezra Pound. The poem deals with themes of searching for purpose, dealing with death, and spiritual journeys. It's written with a definite number of stresses and includes alliteration and a caesura in each line.
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The Seafarer | Summary, Themes & Analysis
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