The Wife's Lament

Greenberg is so clever with the use of verbal irony throughout the poem. The wife is really being sarcastic to her husband, in an attempt to reveal her desires that are evidently ignored. The main line that triggered my understanding was, "Not strong, not proud, not just, not provident, my lover would blame me for his heart's distress, which you would never think to do" (630). Once again, I initially thought she was complimenting her husband and showing him great respect. This strong, proud, just and provident man seemed perfect. However, the choice of words "...my lover would blame me for his heart's distress..." is what enlightened my thinking (630). The wife wanted to be so important to her husband that she would be the only thing that causes him distress. She actually resents this prideful man who seems to make everything else more important that her.

The author directs some of the phrases to women that are reading the poem. For example line 3-4 ” If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can(Anne Bradstreet).” Basically the author is saying that she thinks her man is the best and no other woman will find a guy as great as him. On the other hand, the letter is referring to one person, his wife. The letter just talks about how he wants his wife to learn how to live without him. The poem talks just about a husband, while the letter includes two kids and a

poem wherein she’s revealing her never-ending love, devotion, and appreciation for her spouse. The fact that she was born around the seventeenth century could mean it is puritan culture for women to remain reserved, regardless of how they may truly feel; however, she makes it her obligation to make her husband aware of feelings, whether positive or negative. She uses figurative language and declarative tone through imagery, repetition, and paradoxes to send her message. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" can be interpreted in many ways by many different people depending how it is initially read. This uncertainty allows the poem to be interpreted on a surface level and on a deeper level.

In the second stanza “Say Your Wife! So your confidence grows” classifies “you” as the husband and “she” as the husband’s wife. This is because earlier “she” is associated with wearing a short black slip and red lipstick, which are clothes a female would wear and “you” calls her “Your wife!” thus considering “she” as the wife. Finally, the speaker of the poem is not clearly identified but can be assumed to be one of the husband’s

In The Wife’s Lament, the wife is forced to exile. The wife reveals the feelings of suffering, regret, and loneliness. The wife’s misery began when her Lord left her behind. The Wife set out to find him but her Lord’s Kinsmen didn’t want them together anymore, and this is when the forced exile takes actions. “My man’s kinsmen began to plot by darkened thought to divide us two so we most widely in the world’s kingdom lived wretchedly and I suffered longing.” (Lines 11-15). The wife believes she will one day be reunited with her Lord so she moves away to new land. The wife then finds out her Lord wants to commit a crime. “Hiding his mood thinking of murder” (Line 20). This scares the wife and forces her to move into the woods under an Oak Tree. This shows the wife as weak which is not an Anglo-Saxon belief. The wife also believes a man who is weak should never show it, should always pretend to be fine. She believes this because men have the upper hand, they hold more power. A man who shows he’s weak has no belief as Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxons think nobody should ever be weak, they should always be brave. It shows how she’s scared of her lord, so scared she runs into the woods and stays under an oak tree. This exile shows women have no power.

The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament all contains faith verses fate. The three poems are very similar and very different. The three poems ranging from a lonely man, to a lost soldier, to a wife’s bedrail. The medieval poems show hurt, confusion, and loneliness.

In the poem “The Wife’s Lament” there is a transfer to a female point of view which was rare during times of a patriarchal society. A theme seen is this poem is exile. The wife who faces exile from her lord later reaches a state of bitter unhappiness. The wife expresses her longing for her husband through use of ubi sunt:

Over the years, there have been many interpretations of who the speaker of The Wife’s Lament could be. These range from very interesting ideas to ones that seem a little rough around the edges. It is obvious that no sure answer can be found due to the fact that whoever wrote this poem is dead and that the answer will always be in speculation even if it is correct. Hopefully, at the end of this quest I will be slightly more enlightened as to who the true speaker may really be.

The Wife’s Lament is about a woman who is writing about a betrayal. The poem starts off with a woman speaking to herself. She’s making a poem out to herself and all the suffering that was brought to her life. She begins to explain how her lover left her first, letting us know that all the pain she’s going through right now was inflicted by that event. We find out later on in the poem that there are a lot of hidden meanings behind the words she uses in the poem.

Isolation from society can evoke a deep loneliness and self-reflection. The poem "The Wife's Lament" from the Exeter Book expresses the desolation of exile. The dominant theme is the contrast of a happy past and a bleak present of isolation. The anonymous author of "The Wife's Lament" uses setting, tone, and conflict to develop the theme of great loss. He/she augments a situation in which meditation on life's past joys is the only redemption in a life sentenced to confinement. “The Wife’s Lament” is an excellent example of nostalgia, resentment of the present, and hopelessness about the future.

Analysis of “The Wife’s Lament” “The Wife’s Lament,” by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon scop, focuses on the themes of, sorrow and wondering. This elegy reveals the worries, torment, and mourning a speaker feels when lies come between their relationship with a loved one. The wife is helpless as her husband has been brainwashed by his kinsmen. Although her husband should believe her he does not, and the wife still worries about his feelings as well as his safety.

Views on the “Husband's Message” and the “Wife’s Lament” range from the two are a pair or they are not a pair. These two anonymous Old English elegiac poems are both 53 lines long and is found only in the Exeter Book,but some translations have between 45 and 55 lines, mainly depending on whether the translator includes the last lines of the husbands message, which carry the cryptic Viking Rune characters. These poems were both composed in c.650. Are these poems a pair or not?

However, taking in consideration the time when the poem was written and the cult of domesticity where women were never free and had to answer first to their father and later to their husband, marriage was almost a death sentence

It's fair to say that both of these poems portray very similar situations. Each tells a story of a man, exiled from his homeland, struggling to accept their fate and put their old lives behind them. It shows their struggle while traveling alone, and gives you a deeper look into their emotional states. In the end, they both preach their faith in the lord, reflecting the anglo-saxon society, who had christian values. On the other hand, while the wife in “The Wife’s Lament” isn't setting out to sea herself, she is left behind by those she loved. “I a woman tell since I grew up never more than now. The dark of my exile.” It's clear that she still feels the same effects and misery of exile as the Wanderer and the narrator in “The Seafarer”. In relation to these poems, I believe it makes sense to compare the sea to human existence. In the poem’s the moods of the speakers are never certain and constantly changing. They all tell their stories of being exiled, yet continue to dwell on the life that they once had. They all experience up and downs, the same way we do everyday. They eventually come to realize that the good times won't last forever, and that they must accept the fate that man has given to them. The speakers are showing that it's okay to question the world and the amount of power that god holds, but that we should accept the fact that out fate has already been chosen for us.

The history surrounding Anne’s poetry is of a time where Puritans ruled. When looking at her works with historicism, one can understand how she influenced history majorly. Anne’s writings did not reflect many Puritan ideals of that time in history. One of Anne’s famous poems To My Dear and Loving Husband directly defies Puritan views on marriage. Puritans believed that you should love your spouse a lot, but not more than God. They believed you should always love God the most and put him first. The way Anne writes about her husband in the poem she speaks of him as the thing she loves most. She just briefly mentions God, instead of focusing the majority of her poem on him. The love between a husband and wife was supposed to be something private according to the Puritans. With this poem, Anne was broadcasting her love for her