The Wanderer is a poem that laments both the temporality of human life and the material world, posing existential questions that seem to be answered only in the relatively short conclusion, although it appeals to the Christian God . Partly because of this structural oddity, critical attention to The Tramp has shifted radically over the past century. While early 20th-century critics believed that the poem's conclusion, due to its didacticism, was added later to Christianize a piece rich in pagan associations, later critics argued that it was part of a coherent and coherent argument towards faith in God. With reference to The Sailor, also criticized for an apparent structural division, this essay will take the position that, through the use of a lexicon deriving from pre-Christian thought, the poet forms a coherent argument in favor of belief in God. But crucially, this same argument, although it may seem limited at first reading, actually advocates a liberation from cultural norms and a fluidity resulting from belief in psychological and spiritual freedom. Indeed, it is the dichotomy between the rigid and the fluid that best exemplifies the Saxon struggle to carve out an independent Christian identity through the use of pre-Christian resources. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One dichotomy displayed by The Wanderer, which has divided critics, is the explicit reference to Christianity at the beginning and end, juxtaposed with the lack of an active Christian element in the main body of the poem. Indeed, biblical language pervades the opening and closing lines, for example “metudes miltse” (2) in line 2 and “Fder on heofonum” (115) in line 115. Furthermore, the message from the conclusion suggests that meaning and security reside from within devout faith in God: “par us eal seo fastnung stonde?” (115). In contrast to this didacticism, the rest of the poem appears to be devoid of explicit Christian features, rather it is filled with Old Germanic imagery originating historically from pre-Christian traditions, with the narrative following the laments of a lordless "eardstapa". (6) while dwelling on the transitory nature of worldly objects. A deep sadness is evoked at the loss of the “meoduhealle” (27), described by some critics as the narrator's “spiritual center” – ironic for a poem that ends with such a spiritual and Christian feeling. According to some critics, the tradition to which the poem conforms is rooted in a pagan form and lexicon as it resembles that of a "Celtic elegy", possibly cementing a structural and thematic divide between the central section which derives from the pagan tradition and ancient Germanic, and the didactic part, Christian Conclusion. Even removing the idea that the poem has direct pagan associations, the tone for the majority of the piece is generally secular, such as the references to the Beasts of Battle ("sumne se hara wulf") (82), which reflect heroic poems such as the Battle of Maldon: although this in itself is in opposition to the Christian conclusion, the lack of prescription that accompanies this secularity makes the seemingly closed ending appear more limited. For these reasons, early critics believed that much of the poem exhibited a sense of fluidity, asking the reader existential questions, such as "eal is eoran gesteal idel weore" (110). To the end there is a distinct absence of divine explanation; the lamentations revolve exclusively around the transience of these temporal goods. It is this division that might lend credence to the idea that the conclusion is more rigid than the main bodyof the text, as the final lines appear to be dedicated to a prescriptive religious imperative. It was this apparent structural opposition that led some early 20th-century critics to argue that the introduction and conclusion were actually later additions to the poem, employed as a tool to Christianize a work otherwise influenced by Old Germanic and probably pagan. Although it is now generally recognized that these critics were wrong in their theories, perhaps the fact that these readings were generated reflects at least some kind of inconsistency in the structure of the poem and its relation to fluidity. Similarly, previous critics have also been tempted to divide The Seafarer, another text that appears to draw on both a pre-Christian and Christian tradition, into two sections based on an abrupt change in vocabulary and imagery. Over half the poem is devoted to the speaker's anxiety caused by the loss of relatives: "Ne nig hleomga" (27), told alongside his journey as a solitary traveler as the poem begins "Mg Ic be me sylfum sogied wrecan" ( 1). Like The Wanderer, these images derive distinctly from an ancient German culture and belief system. This is in contrast to the last part of the poem, particularly from lines 106 onwards, which perhaps show an even more didactic conclusion than that of the Wanderer; the poet emphasizes the importance of "eadignesse" (120) which can be achieved through "lufan Dryhtnes" (121). The suggestion is present in both poems, but more explicit in The Seafarer, that eternal joy lies in faith in God as opposed to the temporal nature of earthly things. Crucially, these conclusions, at least on initial reading, exist in stark contrast to the majority of the poems - particularly The Wanderer - which seems to revel in a mostly secular - and sometimes pagan - aesthetic, and the apparent didacticism may be seen as restrictive. in comparison to the stories and heroic tales previously told in both; in line 111 of The Seafarer the poet probably invokes the containment and compartmentalization of human thought: “scyle monna gehwylc, mid moan hedgedan” (111). However, we may object to the claim that the Wanderer's conclusion is more closed than the rest of the poem both because it is not devoid of a lexicon of pre-Christian influence and because it derives naturally, similar to a philosophical argument, from the body of the narrative itself. In both The Sailor and The Wanderer the conclusions refer to the pagan concept of “wryd” – a personified form of destiny that pervades Old Germanic belief systems – showing how even in the more didactic sections of their works, the poets conform to a lexicon that has its roots in pre-Christian thought. Although following this argument suggests that the middle and end of the poem are not as distinct from each other as it would seem at first glance, perhaps one should not risk defining the fluidity and rigidity exclusively in terms of paganism and Christianity , since this logic lends itself to historical anachronism. Critics, starting around 1940, began to challenge the “interpolation theory” advanced in earlier readings by arguing not that the conclusion adopts a pre-Christian rhetoric, but that the poem does not actually exhibit “necessarily pagan elements.” For these critics the language typically seen as pagan, such as “wryd,” is not used in the poems in its original pre-Christian sense: in this case wryd is used simply as a concept of fate. For this reason, critic J Timmer argues that imposing a judgment on the poem's conclusion based on an alleged division between a Christian conclusion and a pre-Christian body is not supported by linguistic evidence.While Timmer's argument is valuable in moving the discussion of the conclusion away from a perceived dichotomy, perhaps in their desire to react against the anachronism of the interpolation theory, critics such as Timmer underestimate the importance of the pre-Christian lexicon. While words like “wryd” may have lost some of their pagan connotations, it can be argued that what they illustrate is an attempt to formulate a Christian message through the fusion of a lexicon that originated in and is steeped in pre-Christian society. Even if the language is “pagan only in its associations,” these associations are still relevant to the discussion of how a religious conclusion can be reached through a vocabulary predisposed to pagan values. As critic Lawrence Beaston suggests, "while the speaker has experienced the consolation of the Christian God, his difficulties have not been so diminished by this consolation that he no longer needs to lament the loss of his former life." To extend Beaston's point, not only does the narrator fail to abandon his previous culture, but he must necessarily – linguistically – conform to it due to the nature of the language available to him. While it is easy to assume that the merging of As if a Christian and pre-Christian lexicon resembles an attempt to fuse a rigid and fluid belief system, one could argue that the language of the poems suggests that the narrative voices actually reject confinement through adoption of a Christian lexicon. To assume that because the poem ends with a religious message that the flow of the rest of the poem is compromised is to come to the text with a misunderstood bias. The narrators of The Wanderer and The Seafarer likely find a form of narrative freedom in their search for god, for at the beginning of the former, the narrator states: “aet bif in eorle, indryhten eaw aet he his ferdlocan, faeste binde healde his hordcofan , hycge swa he wille” (12-14) The implication of this passage is that - emphasized through the use of the imperative - the warrior culture (“eorle”) fosters a sense of mental entrapment. When the speaker distances himself from this culture, although initially struck by an apparent senselessness, he also frees himself from this form of containment manifested through a "binde" between the spiritual and the physical. Indeed, the use of the past tense in the segment suggests that the narrator's “felocan” and “hordcofan” may no longer be subject to such a restriction. This sentiment is confirmed in the conclusion: “wel bi am and he are seced beorn of his breostum acyan” (114); by lamenting the transitory nature of material things and placing faith in the eternal and divine nature of God, the narrator loosened his chest and achieved liberation of thought. While the narrator of The Seafarer proposes that every man should act with moderation in line 111, this limitation is not in reference to the restraint of human thought (as previously stated), but rather to behaving with moderation in one's behavior towards others. Rather than censorship, the seafarer here advocates a “love thy neighbor” morality, as he directs his restraint upon both “leopne” and “lane” (112). The same narrative voice – represented by the “hyge” (58) – also obtains liberation from the previous constraint: “Foron nu min hyge hweorfe, ofer hreerlocan” (58). As in The Wanderer, by dwelling on the transitory nature of the world and extending his soul toward God, the narrator achieves divine reconciliation and a free voice. Although both poems may differ in the tone of the conclusions, both show that a religious conclusion does not necessarily undermine the poem's fluency: from this perspective both speakers are less constrained after.74