Land Locked and Loving it
Land locked and loving it, the typical high school student leads an idle and unreal life. To say that their life is unreal does not mean that they are dead, but when the hardest decision of the day is wether or not to eat at Wendy's, one must question how in touch with the real world these students actually are (this author included). Living in an environment that focuses on a pain-free, easy life, it is hard to connect with the old-English mariners who wrote "The Seafarer" and "The Wanderer." Both poets knew that a terrestrial in "ignorant ease" could not understand the call that drove these men to endure such hardships. The separation of life styles between both mariners and people on the land is part of what creates isolation that is so prevalent in both poems. As the Seafarer puts it: "No man sheltered on the quiet fairness of earth can feel how wretched I was."(Lines 12-14 Seafarer). Both the Seafarer and the wanderer are in exile of s
ome kind, but its causes are different. However, the Seafarer is more individual, while the Wanderer is more interested in the comitatus. Both are veteran sailors and talk about the comitatus which they have with fellow sailors. The Seafarer chooses to go, drawn by some primal urge and want for adventure to the sea. He is dead except that being alive gets in his way. The greatest similarity between the two is that they are both excellent parts of the English language. While isolation is a significant focus in both poems, death is also a main point of interest. This is also a difference between the two. Both "The Seafarer" and "The Wanderer" were written during the decline of their civilization, and because they were written in this decadent time period, both mention the joy and the greatness of the past. The Wanderer, in contrast, is "hoping to find a place, a people, a lord to replace my (his) lost ones. And although they were written centuries ago, they are still read, studied and analyzed by small-town school children. Perhaps the most obvious point of comparison is the point of view of the authors and their descriptions. Both are Christian and mention God throughout the poems. Because both poets live out on the harsh, cruel sea, they are surrounded by death and threatened with its presence constantly.
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