earticle

영어

Little critical attention has been paid to the recurring motifs of loss and suffering contrived in elegiac Old English poems, in particular, The Wife’s Lament and The Riming Poem. The key purpose of this article is to examine how these works represent the speakers’ persistent meditations on their wretched, irresistible hardships of bereavement and distress triggered largely by the unanticipated mutability of human affairs. The speakers’ keen awareness of the displacement of a dearest person, fame, joy, or stability drives them to undertake distress which is hurled into a discord between fate and human willpower. This paper also explores the unique way in which both speakers articulate their agonizing thoughts of pain and loss in the tragic circumstances. They unveil complex responses to their internal torments in different ways, especially, in their religious perspectives on the elimination of anguish inside them.