Where were we. O, yes, perhaps not intending to be quite as back-handed as it looked in complimenting the Best British Poetry 2012 anthology on sending me back a thousand years to Wulf and Eadwacer.
I've never been big on Old English, or even Chaucer, a mere 400 years later than this, except for always remembering Craig Raine's re-make of this poem in his book, Rich, that we were blessed with in 1984. Tremendous poem and by no means a translation.
I've been happy enough with that ever since until being driven to further investigation this week.
Don't take my word for it, but it would appear that the original poem was written between 960-990, collected in The Exeter Book, is certainly written from a female point of view and, some say, by a woman and for me has plenty of that mystery about it that makes a poem great. The difference is that in this case it is difficult to understand because the language it is written in is already difficult notwithstanding any other ambiguity of meaning. It is not because the agenda of the author demands that her meaning is difficult for us to interpret. Or, not necessarily.
Reducing it to absurdam, the lady is stuck on an island, in 'renig weder' (I think even I can translate that) with Eadwacer but she'd rather be with Wulf, who is away on another island. There are a number of possibilities, all discussed in easily findable places on the interweb. Inevitably, of the several versions available in translation, Paul Muldoon's has to be the preferred option, although you might want to see two or three more to see how else it might be done.
http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/muldoon_reads_wulf_and_eadwacer/
And there are readings in Old English on You Tube and elsewhere.
It is a wonderful poem, and all the better for its unintended mystery.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I published booklets of my own poems. The original allocation of ISBN numbers is used up now, though. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become, often more about music than books and not so often about poems. It will be about whatever suggests itself.
