The Vanishing Seabirds in The Wanderer

THE seabirds in the Old English poem The Wanderer provide the most vividly realized scene in the poem, even though they actually appear for only one line. The effectiveness of the seabird scene stems partly from the contrast it provides to the wanderer's previous illusions, and partly from the part the seabirds play in the wanderer's change of perception that follows their appearance. As the wanderer surfaces briefly from his own mind's turmoil to see them, the birds function very much as an objective correlative, first to an emotion, then to an idea. He has been dreaming that he was back in the hall where he once knew fellowship, laying hand and head on his dear lord's knee. But then he awakes to the reality that he is wineleas 'without a friend', and

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• Native Foreigners

  Michael Warren, Michael J Warren•English Studies•2017

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