and demonstrates the transience of earthly prosperity,
fi nding true happiness in Christian values. However,
“The Seafarer” insists on a more active pursuit of these
Christian values. In the attempt to unite two sets of
tradition, the Germanic heroic tradition and the Chris-
tian tradition, the author has often been praised for his
or her original use of diction. The word dryhten (lord)
can refer to the Germanic use of the word that denotes
the Anglo-Saxon lord/retainer relationship, or it can
refer to the Heavenly Lord (see, for example, ll. 39–
42). Lof means the earthly praise that a person can
obtain by doing heroic deeds, or it can refer to the
heavenly glory that a person can obtain by doing good
deeds (ll. 72–80). Other examples include dream (joy),
blæd (glory), and duguð (noble host). The poet freely
uses idiom, which is common in heroic literature, to
express homiletic ideas, thus uniting the fi rst and sec-
ond halves of the poem. By using ambiguous diction,
the author tries to move away from the temporary sec-
ular world to the everlasting heavenly sphere, without
alienating the Anglo-Saxon audience.
Perhaps because of this ambiguous diction, modern
critics cannot agree on the poem’s interpretation. For
instance, debates abound as to whether or not the sea
journey is actual or metaphorical (spiritual). Further
diffi culties arise from the two very different and seem-
ingly unrelated parts of the poem. Although most crit-
ics—today, anyway—agree that both parts form a
whole, methods of uniting the seafaring and the hom-
ily are under debate.
The standard allegorical interpretation connects the
exile to Adam and his descendants who were cast out
of Paradise. Good Christians who belong to the “city of
God” are exiles in this sinful earthly world. The seafar-
er’s journey is therefore a spiritual journey toward his
heavenly home, as his life on earth has been an exile
among Germanic non-Christians.
Another critical stance sees the seafarer’s journey as
a pilgrimage for the love of God. There are many exam-
ples in early Anglo-Saxon literature that refer to a vol-
untary exile or pilgrimage to strange countries, often
by sea, in order to improve his or her state in the after-
life. The speaker thus decides to undertake such a sea
journey to reach the land of the exiles because he real-
izes that the pleasures of earthly life can steer him away
from a heavenly reward. This stance is slightly different
from the allegorical reading in that the journey is both
literal and spiritual, and it is voluntary and necessary.
Still other scholars view the poem as a linear narra-
tive, with the fi rst part relating the past, the transition
describing the present, and the second part projecting
the future. The story progresses as the seafarer devel-
ops a positive and Christian insight into his experi-
ences. Thus, the seafaring, the exile, and the so-called
homily are seamlessly interwoven into a journey of sal-
vation and conversion.
FURTHER READING
Gordon, I. L., ed. The Seafarer. London: Methuen & Co,
1960.
Orton, Peter. “The Form and Structure of The Seafarer.” Stu-
dia Neophilologica 63, no. 1 (1991): 37–55.
Whitelock, Dorothy. “The Interpretation of The Seafarer.”
In The Early Cultures of Northwest Europe, edited by Cyril
Fox and Bruce Dickens, 259–272. Cambridge, 1950.
Annemarie ThijmsSEAGER, JANE See TUDOR WOMEN POETS.
SESTET The sestet is either a six-line poem or
poem STANZA (e.g., the SESTINA is built of six sestet stan-
zas), or it is the last six lines of an ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN)
SONNET. As part of the SONNET, the sestet follows the
OCTAVE, or fi rst eight lines, and develops a resolution to
the poetic situation presented in the octave. It is distin-
guished from the octave by a new set of rhymes; the
octave is usually abba, abba, and the sestet will then
follow with cde, cde, though many variants (ccd, ccd;
cdc, ede; etc.) are used.
FURTHER READING
Dasenbrock, Reed Way. “Wyatt’s Transformation of
Petrarch.” Comparative Literature 40, no. 2 (1988):
122–133.
Oppenheimer, Paul. “The Origin of the Sonnet.” Compara-
tive Literature 34, no. 4 (1982): 289–304.
Carol E. HardingSESTINA A sestina is a very strictly structured
poem of six SESTETs and a three-line ENVOI, which sum-
marizes or dedicates the poem. The specifi c structure354 SEAGER, JANE