The Wife's Lament Quotes

Question 1

The speaker styles herself as a ‘friendless exile’?

Answer 1

‘wineleas wræcca’

Question 2

The opening line ‘I relate this mournful riddle about myself’?

Answer 2

‘Ic þis giedd wrece / bi me ful geomorre’, a statement very similar to the introductory image of The Seafarer

Question 3

The setting is a dwelling place deprived of joy?

Answer 3

The desolate setting of The Wife’s Lament uses physical detail to demonstrate the isolation and dreariness experienced by the speaker, as seen through the overtly negative description ‘wic wynna leas’, which mirrors the importance of deprivation as a quality of exile which is explored in The Wanderer.

Question 4

She lives under an oak tree in the earth-cave?

Answer 4

‘under actreo / in þam eorðscræfe’ depicts her home as a natural shelter which is not present in a man-made society

Question 5

Emotional distress of speaker is rooted in body parts?

Answer 5

highly negative nouns ’modceare’ and ’breostceare’

Question 6

Gnomic statement to end the poem that it is misery for those who have to wait for a loved one?

Answer 6

’wa bið þam þe sceal // of langoþe / leofes abidan’