The Wanderer and The Seafarer belong to elegies, which are ´the most subjective and emotional part of Anglo-Saxon poetry being otherwise much restrained in real feeling and emotion´ . The word elegy is derived from ´the Greek elegos meaning funeral song´ and like all elegies both poems are full of melancholy, mournful mood. The influence of christianity, which penetrated into Anglo-Saxon society in the sixth and seventh century, is evident in both poems. I decided for the analysis of these two poems because they deal with suffering and I wanted to learn how other people, in this case Wanderer and Seafarer, perceive life while suffering and how they solve their misery. This essay will concentrate on the comparison of the poems in terms of these issues: impact of society on heroes, their relation to God,fate, their attitude towards life on Earth, their perception and reaction to suffering. This aim will be achieved by the analysis of poetic images, explaining metaphors and other poetic devices. …
