Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Clark, Amy W.

Titel

As Though “Wit” Never Were: The Dual Pronoun as Interpretive Crux in The Wife's Lament

Ist Teil von

• Journal of English and Germanic philology, 2022-07, Vol.121 (3), p.321-341

Ort / Verlag

Urbana: University of Illinois Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

Project MUSE: Universal journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Clark discusses the dual pronoun as interpretive Crux in The Wife's Lament. The cryptic speaker of the Old English poem we call The Wife's Lament has long been the subject of speculation. She is painted as hopeful, mournful, vindictive; her song is a lament by a dead woman, a curse by a living woman - or, perhaps, not a woman's song at all. For some, she evokes erotic longing; for others, bitter regret. In many ways, however, this plethora of interpretations demonstrates the limitations of a narrative-driven analysis when that narrative remains unclear. The final hortatory passage within the poem thus becomes a plea for reunification. The speaker of The Wife's Lament isolates her lord not for the sake of punishment, but in order to bring his mod - his experience of the world - back into alignment with her own.