Debating the gender of the author of the poem the wifes lament v1

Debating the gender of the author of the poem "The Wife's Lament". The poem has been
described as a text expressing a woman's feelings about her mood, but there has been much
debate about the author's gender, with the opinion that this poem has male intervention,
although the poem is the voice expressing the kidney without any mediator.
Answer
“The Wife's Lament”, also known as “The Wife's Complaint” is an ancient 53-line
English poem, which is copied in the Anglo-Saxon miscellaneous book Exoniensis Code
or Exeter Book together with other elegies such as The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”, and
“Wulf and Eadwacer” ect. This poem tells the story of a woman who falls into despair
because she is separated from her husband, who is the man of the ruling class in their
society. He rejected her for unclear reasons, and then she was forced to become an exile
and refugee, living on oak trees in strange and unfriendly land. The female voice in the
poem expresses the theme of sadness and exile, which makes it one of the most famous
and studied poems in Old English classics.
Although this poem has been widely studied by writers and historians since the end
of the 19th century, the historical origin of this poem is still ambiguous (just like a large
number of Anglo-Saxon literature), resulting in a large number of translations and
interpretations. Some explanations go even further, which may imply that the protagonist's
gender (wife/woman) is a duplication error. The protagonist was originally a male. Ignore
this possible gender precision error, Most scholars read and study this article based on the
assumption that, This may be a very early example of the unique female discourse in
literature. According to Klinck (1994), critics deny the female sex of the speaker on the
grounds that female dramatic monologues are not characteristic of the literature of this
period, and today seem to represent a hermeneutic position that is not strangely influenced
by textual evidence. As an important work of existing female discourse/rhetoric, the study
of this poem continues to this day. As Cheryl Glenn and other scholars have helped us
realize, in order to redescribe the origin of female rhetoric, all historical times containing
important clues should not be allowed to fade out of our collective consciousness without


proper reflection. Therefore, to begin to restore the rare historical rhetoric left to us by

women in Anglo-Saxon times, And to link it with women's contribution to speech in the
later period, scholars (especially those who specialize in women's rhetoric in history) must
critically re-examine poems such as wife's lamentation, look for text remnants originating
from any female gender, and distinguish them as important cultural contributions to
discourse in Anglo-Saxon texts. As Alexandra Olsen (1994) said when talking about
ancient English poetry, he wants to define "feminism" as a way to admit that poetry or
novels (whether written by men or women) may contain women's views... Feminist reading
is an attempt to restore the essence of women in early society.
The research in this field is very valuable for examining the connection and root
causes of persecution of women in Anglo-Saxon period and many societies after that.
Recording and understanding the changes that began to create more oppressive cultures at
the beginning of medieval European Christian doctrines will help feminist researchers
record the early historical cycle of gender-based conquest and oppression and allow more
contemporary comparisons. However, in order to regard this article as an early example of
rhetoric in women's voices, we must examine and understand the essence of how this
particular woman speaks and who she may speak to. Her voice lives in many fields, because
her story is written as her inner dialogue, trying to understand what happened to her and
how she felt about it. However, if this poem is placed in the external context, her voice
conveys a necessary rhetorical power.
In this essay, the writter thinks that "The Wife’s Lament" can be understood as a text
of a woman's feelings about her interpersonal relationship. There's something wrong with
the text, because despite the controversy surrounding the author's gender and the very
realistic possibility of some types of male endorsements in the text (although the voice
representing oneself is not reconciled), The text seems to be happy to present the
characteristics of public speech, which is an example of early female rhetoric surviving
from Anglo-Saxon period, involving women's initiative and subjectivity.


The search for the survival of Anglo-Saxon female rhetoric has been going on for
some time, although perhaps this narrow academic research category has not been fully

explored. In addition to the research done by Cheryl Glenn (1997) and other feminist
scholars in retrieving the voice of women in the past, they put forward a very contemporary
view of contemporary women's expression, which is linked with the continuity of literary
research and left us as an example of medieval women's rhetoric. Glenn talked about
women's voices in her work Reversal of Essence. She discussed her view that the poem
may be composed of a woman, and in her opinion, it may even be composed of a woman.
She said that the exiled wife is both the voice of the poem and the protagonist of the poem,
which proves that she thinks the poem is composed of a woman.
Although the writer does not fully believe that what writer read in “The Wife’s
Lament” is the work of a completely unwilling female writer (although this is an immortal
fact in Anglo-Saxon literary genre), it will give it the authority of Anglo-Saxon female
rhetoric. When discussing Anglo-Saxon poetry, other researchers try to break through the
intermediary restriction of gender construction.
In an essay published in 1993, Jackie McClelland pointed out that there are many
reasons to suspect that many people think that the narrator “The Wife’s Lament” is a
woman, which is due to the subconscious tendency caused by social conditions. She said
that we must accept that the narrator is a woman, not because of tortuous themes or endings,
but because we have been bound by social history and myths, predicting that the role of
women is passive and obedient. We assume that a "she "must wait for a "he"; Therefore,
the narrator in the poem must be a female.
The writer will only agree with Glenn to a certain extent, and I am more sure of
McClellan under these specific circumstances. The emotional content of poetry is
undoubtedly the recognized cultural structure of women's emotions, which is suitable for
ordinary women and women in that social position. The difference in my research lies in
whether it is acceptable for a male author to faithfully and effectively reproduce the
emotional content of female speeches. If we assume that this is possible, even to a limited


extent, does this reduce the value of women's speech as a rhetoric, especially when there
are too few examples for reference? I am not saying that this poem may not have been

written by a female poet, or at least it has not been seriously influenced by a female poet.
I'm just saying that when we admit our current concept of Anglo-Saxon social framework,
there is an obvious possibility that this work is not a completely unreconciled or unfiltered
female work.
An earlier article by Marilynn Desmond (1990) touched on a similar field, when she
discussed the need to read women's voices in order to prevent them from disappearing from
being heard in history. Desmond pointed out that feminist readers must stay out of the
patriarchal prejudice of male texts (feminist criticism), and she must restore female texts
from their marginal position in culture and classics (female criticism). As I am in my
position in this article, Desmond realizes in his works that trying to find the inherent
problems of female rhetoric from the past, She pointed out that the expression of female
subjectivity must play a role outside the patriarchal boundaries of Anglo-Saxon texts.
Feminist poetics must recognize the medieval attitude towards power and authors, which
enables medieval people to put the voice of texts above historical authors or implicit
authors. Susan Morrison had a similar view in an article in 2000, she said that women's
voices, such as wives' laments, are at the intersection of gender and genre, and must adapt
to male’s customs, otherwise they will be abandoned, but as Barthes once said, to give an
text a “author” and specify a corresponding explanation “is to impose restrictions on the
text”.
Diane Watt discussed Anglo-Saxon women in her works, and she was well aware of
the difficulties in studying female's literacy achievements during this period. Despite
pointing out these obstacles, Watt said at the end of the 2013 essay that traces can still be
found... reading strategies must take into account women's full or early participation in
literature and culture. In her later work, she bluntly said in the introduction that the history
of female literature paid little attention to the contact between medieval women and literary


history. However, recent studies by Anglo-Saxon feminists show that women are the core
of English literary tradition.
The writer believe that the discussion of poetry advocated by Watt is very relevant,

although there is no specific detail of the author and direct evidence of male intercession.
The work as “The Wife’s Lament” cannot be ignored or belittled by the relative ambiguity
surrounding the text, just like those that show traces of being rewritten by monks, or as
works obscured and written in the literary history from the Bede era to the end of the 20th
century and beyond.
Lisa Weston (2012) specially wrote about the influence of St. Hilderis of Bajin
Monastery on the Anglo-Saxon Monastery Literary Society. According to Weston, both
Aldhelm and Boniface mention that Hildelith helped develop the core literary text of the
monastery, and Aldhelm's disciple Boniface also believes that Hildelith has similar literary
ability and equal cultural power. Weston believes that Hildelis nurtured her predecessor's
sect through an implicit and clear sacred narrative, and then says at the end of this chapter,
her redefinition of the ideology of her community has laid the foundation for spiritual
strength and literary creation, which will become the characteristics of future generations.
All these studies point out the existence of female literacy and the existing evidence
supporting the possibility of women participating in Anglo-Saxon cultural and literary
traditions. Therefore, the ideological standpoint of “The Wife’s Lament” is not only a
personal exploration of interpersonal feelings from the perspective of women, but also a
social and political criticism of Anglo-Saxon samurai culture and women's position in it. It
seems that it is not possible to directly target male-dominated monastery readers. It is also
completely impossible for one or more women to directly participate in the creation of this
poem. Unfortunately, there is no accurate assessment in the text or historical evidence,
which enables us to specifically determine these possibilities.
However, this poem is composed of problematic ambiguities between the narrator's
internal and external considerations (the narrator's personal thoughts and the public


rhetorical statements inferred from her speech). The narrator allows, until today, for many
reactions of readers, the text can be read convincingly in different ways and operate
coherently on many levels. According to Hough (2003), this can be regarded as a deliberate
trick of the poet. In writer’s opinion, a large number of interpretations of “The Wife’s

Lament” since it was copied actually prove that the poet deliberately constructed the poem
to read in various ways and at multiple levels, including the possibility that it was regarded
as rhetoric by the narrator.
The narrative voice of “The Wife’s Lament” begins with the reflection of the first
person in the heart. When she began to share her personal thoughts, her wife was very sad
because she lost a major relationship that made her a complete person. She first talked
about her despair and described her emotional control: “Full of grief, I make this poem
about myself, my own fate. I have the right to say what miseries I have endured since I
grew up, new or old – never greater than now. Endlessly I have suffered the wretchedness
of exile.” She is sure that this is her words, and the next words will be her own cognitive
thoughts, not filtered out through the views of another woman or man. Readers are allowed
to enter her thoughts and her personal grief, as if she were expressing her feelings in writing,
and what she said there was isolated and close to her own consciousness. Readers are asked
to share, understand and be influenced by people's seclusion and meaningful contact desire,
so that all people who experience the text can also experience her pain.
On the surface, when she read this poem, she said it alone and didn't say it to anyone
in particular. The wife said, “The man’s kinfolk hatched a plot to separate us so that we
two should live most unhappy and farthest from one another in this wide world.” The
narrator of this poem observes the dynamics of personal relations in the context of his
extended family, and at the same time, she is deeply exploring her own sadness. At this
time, some external criticisms of the social and political arrangements of Anglo-Saxon
culture began to appear in front of people who realized this difference, but at this time the
most prominent emotional content in the poem still focused on her unbalanced relationship,
while ancient English writers continued to present women and men as common problems


in a similar way. Here we find a small piece of scattered evidence, revealing the status of
women in Anglo-Saxon society.
Apart from the actual power that a woman can gain in Anglo-Saxon culture, the
woman she laments in this poem shows her helplessness in this situation. But when she

talked about her husband, friends, dear people and God, The ambiguity of the text
reappeared, blurring the distinction between the people she might specifically refer to. As
Wentersdorf (1981) explained, the female speaker refers to one man (her husband or lover),
two men (one husband, then the second husband), or even three men (the relatives of the
two husbands and the second husband accuse their wives of being punished)? Even if
readers of any era only want to explore the logic of one version of the plot in this poem,
the example of possibility provided by Wintersdorf is a sharp reminder that this poem can
follow many different discourse paths. In doing so, if readers allow the development of
external reading, the level of meaning will begin to multiply.
In this essay, the writer did this to explore my views on the rhetorical value of “The
Wife’s Lament”. The writer would also like to give an example of how the poet constructed
this poem and this woman's voice. The writer think this is to promote purposeful ambiguity
and force readers to accept the possibility that this woman's voice is designed to engage in
a larger and more realistic career, not just to tell a broken story of an exiled woman. I'm
not saying that my explanation is the only or correct reading, which should be accepted.
After a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of time has been completed, about what the
poet is trying to do, this woman's voice. However, with a sense of urgency, I declare that
no matter who the author of this article is, male or female, although there are so many
explanations in the poem that it is impossible to reach a complete consensus on the meaning
of all potential aspects in this work, the rhetorical function of this female voice is not
allowed to be silent. However, regardless of the accuracy of the interpretation, if we want
to believe that this is a female rhetoric truly rooted in female subjectivity, “The Wife’s
Lament” is an extremely important example of the spread of early Anglo-Saxon feminism
and must be incorporated into the study of early European female discourse. In Cheryl


Glenn’s feeling, whenever female find that we think that women in history have turned
social pressure into chastity, obedience and silence, we need to laugh loudly and push each
other's ribs. The female need to remind ourselves that some of them may be pure, some
may even be obedient (many of them are very brave), but none of them is silent. These

women have a lot to tell us – all the female have to do is listen to their voices and keep
silent.
Although the complex problems that often haunt “The Wife’s Lament” always belittle
the works or belittle the works as rhetorical speeches, it is the complex structure that always
makes women make her critical remarks and let them hear them.


The female voice in the wife's lament has become a criticism of the principles of
Anglo-Saxon warriors, from a point of view that is often oppressed or belittled by
patriarchal hegemony. She said happily, “With glad countenance, how often we vowed that
death alone – nothing else – would drive us apart. That vow has been overthrown. Our
friendship is as if it had never been. Far and near, I must suffer the feud of my much –
beloved.” The narrator interspersed some comments in the story, which seemed to be
related to the socio-political nature of her situation and how she viewed them. Although
this sentence is undoubtedly the narrator's statement of her personal ideological authority,
if her statement is regarded as a general statement, it has a broader perspective, and she
refers to all women with her concern for "I". Then she went on to say, " First my lord went
away from his people here across the storm – tossed sea." This sentence makes the broader
meaning of her words more relevant. Her statement is not limited to saying that people who
are important to her have left her. She called him her "lord" and he left his people. Therefore,
under the background of the story, it is reasonable to believe that she describes him as the
lord she loves, as well as her actual lord in the political sense and the lord of a specific
group. In this essay, the writer did this to explore my views on the rhetorical value of “The
Wife’s Lament”. The writer would also like to give an example of how the poet constructed
this poem and this woman's voice. The writer think this is to promote purposeful ambiguity
and force readers to accept the possibility that this woman's voice is designed to engage in
a larger and more realistic career, not just to tell a broken story of an exiled woman. I'm
not saying that my explanation is the only or correct reading, which should be accepted.
After a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of time has been completed, about what the
poet is trying to do, this woman's voice. However, with a sense of urgency, I declare that

no matter who the author of this article is, male or female, although there are so many
explanations in the poem that it is impossible to reach a complete consensus on the meaning
of all potential aspects in this work, the rhetorical function of this female voice is not
allowed to be silent. However, regardless of the accuracy of the interpretation, if we want
to believe that this is a female rhetoric truly rooted in female subjectivity, “The Wife’s
Lament” is an extremely important example of the spread of early Anglo-Saxon feminism


and must be incorporated into the study of early European female discourse. In Cheryl
Glenn’s feeling, whenever female find that we think that women in history have turned
social pressure into chastity, obedience and silence, we need to laugh loudly and push each
other's ribs. The female need to remind ourselves that some of them may be pure, some
may even be obedient (many of them are very brave), but none of them is silent. These
women have a lot to tell us – all the female have to do is listen to their voices and keep
silent.
Although the complex problems that often haunt “The Wife’s Lament” always belittle
the works or belittle the works as rhetorical speeches, it is the complex structure that always
makes women make her critical remarks and let them hear them.


In this essay, the writer did this to explore my views on the rhetorical value of “The
Wife’s Lament”. The writer would also like to give an example of how the poet constructed
this poem and this woman's voice. The writer think this is to promote purposeful ambiguity
and force readers to accept the possibility that this woman's voice is designed to engage in
a larger and more realistic career, not just to tell a broken story of an exiled woman. I'm
not saying that my explanation is the only or correct reading, which should be accepted.
After a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of time has been completed, about what the
poet is trying to do, this woman's voice. However, with a sense of urgency, I declare that
no matter who the author of this article is, male or female, although there are so many
explanations in the poem that it is impossible to reach a complete consensus on the meaning

of all potential aspects in this work, the rhetorical function of this female voice is not
allowed to be silent. However, regardless of the accuracy of the interpretation, if we want
to believe that this is a female rhetoric truly rooted in female subjectivity, “The Wife’s
Lament” is an extremely important example of the spread of early Anglo-Saxon feminism
and must be incorporated into the study of early European female discourse. In Cheryl
Glenn’s feeling, whenever female find that we think that women in history have turned
social pressure into chastity, obedience and silence, we need to laugh loudly and push each
other's ribs. The female need to remind ourselves that some of them may be pure, some
may even be obedient (many of them are very brave), but none of them is silent. These
women have a lot to tell us – all the female have to do is listen to their voices and keep
silent.
Although the complex problems that often haunt “The Wife’s Lament” always belittle
the works or belittle the works as rhetorical speeches, it is the complex structure that always
makes women make her critical remarks and let them hear them.


References
1. Klinck, Anne L. "Lyric Voice and the Feminine in Some Ancient and Mediaeval
Frauenlieder." Florilegium 13 (1994): 13-36.
2. Olsen, Alexandra H. "Old English Women, Old English Men: A Reconsideration
of `Minor' Characters," Old English Shorter Poems: Basic Readings, ed. Katherine
O'Brien O'Keefe, BRASE, vol. 3, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1994, 65-83.
3. Glenn, Cheryl. Rhetoric Retold : Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity
Through the Renaissance. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1997. Print.
4. Desmond, Marilynn. "The Voice of Exile: Feminist Literary History and the
Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Elegy." Critical Inquiry 16 (1990): 572-90.
5. Morrison, Susan. "Unnatural Authority: Translating beyond the Heroic in The
Wife's Lament." Medievalia et Humanistica 27 (2000): 19-31.
6. Weston, Lisa. “The Saint – Maker and the Saint: Hildelith Creates Ethelburg.”
Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female

Community. Eds. Brown, Jennifer N, and Donna A. Bussell. Woodbridge, Suffolk: York
Medieval Press, 2012. Print.
7. Wentersdorf, Karl P. The Situation of the Narrator in the Old English Wife's
Lament. Speculum, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jul., 1981), pp. 492-516.
8. Alfred David (translate). “The Wife’s Lament”. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Volume 1.