Journal 7: Motifs in Anglo-Saxon Literature

There are certain motifs which appear throughout various works of literature. One literary work which is saturated with the motifs of faith and destiny is “A History of the English Church & People”. In this work, Caedmon is given a gift by God. At the beginning of his life, he was unable to sing and was uneasy with performing in public. One night, however, he has a dream in which he is asked to sing about Creation. In his song, he uses beautiful lines to praise God. He goes to the abbess of the monastery and it is decided that he ahs been given a gift from God. The abbess is “delighted that God had given such grace to the man, and advised him to abandon secular life and adopt the monastic state”. He becomes a monk and spends the rest of his life writing praises to God. He was given this gift in order to devote his life to using it for the glory of God.
“The Seafarer” is another work which uses motifs to articulate a meaning. The motifs in “The Seafarer” include suffering and faith. The sailor seems to have a desire to go back to land, the things of everyday life at sea not comparing to the things of everyday life on land. Instead of laughter, he says there is a “death-noise of birds”, and instead of mead, there is only the mewing of the gulls. He is alone with his misery and the sea. The only positive point in this is that while his earthly life is tragic and lonely, he holds out hope for Heaven, knowing that it will be a much better place. He says that “Our thoughts should turn to where our home is, Consider the ways of coming there, then strive for sure permission for us to rise to that eternal joy, that life born in the love of God and the hope of Heaven.”
The motifs in “The Wife’s Lament” were longing and loneliness. The reason is not specifically stated, but the wife has been sent to exile by some dishonest scheme. She longs to be back with her husband. She is living in a forest, away from civilization. She mourns for her losses, saying “The absence of my lord comes sharply to me. Dear lovers in this world lie in their beds, while I alone at crack of dawn must walk under the oak-tree round this earthy cave...” This shows how alone she feels without her husband, as well as how remorseful she is about her new dwellings.