Comment
critically on the features of Old English Elegies
An elegy means a poem of mourning or song of lamentation.
We find them in origin both in Greek literature and in Latin. However, term
'elegy' was at first appeared to all kinds of poetry written in a particular
metre, called elegiac metre. The subject of an elegy as such could then
be anything tragic, comic, serious, sad or sentimental. But subsequently the
scope of elegy become confined and the name was applied to the specific kind of
poem of moaning or the song of lamentation. An elegy is now supposed to have
these features: - Reflective, pensiveness and subjectivity.
Anglo Saxon has
either a heroic theme or of lyrical learning. But among these lyrical poems the exception is Widsith.
Widsith: It
is preserved in The Exeter Book. 'Widsith’ means ‘The far-goer’. It is a poem
of 143 lines divided into three Parts –
(A) A prologue – first few lines.
(B) A speech by Widsith – next 125 lines.
(C)En Epilogue – last few lines.
It is the autobiography of an interment minstrel
who recounts the story of his long travels through the old Germanic world.
During his tour he visited different tribal chiefs,
lords, kings and princes and received rich presents, some of them are well
known to History as Ecermanie, kings of Goths, Attila king of Hauns, Albion king of the Lombard, Theodoric, king of Franks
and even the reference of Hrothgovr and Hrothwulf.
