Seafarer poem burton raffel biography
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The Seafarer
Anonymous c. –c.
Poem Text
Poem Summary
Themes
Style
Historical Context
Critical Overview
Criticism
Sources
For Further Study
“The Seafarer” was first discovered in the Exeter Book, a hand-copied manuscript containing the largest known collection of Old English poetry, which is kept at Exeter Cathedral, England. “The Seafarer” has its origins in the Old English period of English literature, , a time when very few people knew how to read or write. Old English (the predecessor of modern English) is the name given to the Germanic tongues brought to England by the invading tribes who crossed the English channel from Northern Europe. Old English resembles German and Scandinavian languages, and one cannot read it without at least one year of intense study. Even in its translated form, “The Seafarer” provides an accurate portrait of the sense of stoic endurance, suffering, loneliness, and spiritual yearning so characteristic of Old English poetry. “The Seafare
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Burton Raffel
American writer
Burton Raffel | |
|---|---|
| Born | ()April 27, New York City, New York |
| Died | September 29, () (aged&#;87) Lafayette, Louisiana |
| Occupation | Writer, translator |
| Nationality | American |
| Notable works | Beowulf translation |
Burton Nathan Raffel (April 27, – September 29, ) was an American writer, translator, poet and professor. He is best known for his vigorous[1] translation of Beowulf, still widely used in universities, colleges and high schools. Other important translations include Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Poems and Prose from the Old English, The Voice of the Night: Complete Poetry and Prose of Chairil Anwar, The Essential Horace, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel and Dante's The Divine Comedy.[2]
Biography
[edit]Raffel was born in New York City in [3] An alumnus of James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York (), Raffel was educated at Brooklyn College (B.A., ), Ohio State Un
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The Seafarer (poem)
Old English poem
The Seafarer fryst vatten an Old Englishpoem giving a first-person account of a man alone on the sea. The poem consists of lines, followed by the single word "Amen". It is recorded only at folios 81 verso – 83 recto[1] of the tenth-century[2]Exeter Book, one of the kvartet surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry. It has most often, though not always, been categorised as an elegy, a poetic genre commonly assigned to a particular group of Old English poems that reflect on spiritual and earthly melancholy.
Summary
[edit]Much scholarship suggests that the poem is told from the point of view of an old seafarer who is reminiscing and evaluating his life as he has lived it. The seafarer describes the desolate hardships of life on the vinterlik sea.[3] He describes the anxious feelings, cold-wetness, and solitude of the sea voyage in contrast to life on land where men are surrounded bygd kinsmen, free from dangers, and full