The Interconnected Journeys of Mind, Body and Soul in the Exeter Book Elegies Felix Morrison College

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the title it is now most famously known by, The Wanderer is a poem that operates as a journey on numerous levels; there is – of course – the physical journey of the solitary man as he navigates his way through an unforgiving natural world; the spiritual journey of the “eardstapa” (earth stepper) towards consolation in a Christian God; and, drawing from Daniel G. Calder’s statement that "the Wanderer is a poem which focuses almost entirely on the mind", the elegy offers a journey into the nature of the human mind. And although I would agree with Calder that the mind takes a central position within the poem (indeed the “binding” of mental activity and the eventual path to wisdom structure the narrative), I wish to illustrate in this essay that the Anglo-Saxon concept of the mind are inseparable from the external natural world and contemporary Christian notions surrounding the soul. The Wanderer when analysed alongside The Seafarer and The Wife’s Lament (also contained within The Exeter Book), offers a conception of the mind as physical container: thoughts and emotions are spatially located and mapped onto the body. While the similarities between The Seafarer and The Wanderer are well established – and...