Okay so as I was telling everyone in class, I have been crazy busy and haven’t had the chance to really sit down and give this thing the time it needs.
The Persistence of English was only briefly mentioned in class, but I found it so interesting. I was amazed to find out that English is spoken by about 25% of the WORLD’S population. After I read the article, I had a discussion about it with my fiancé. He informed me that the United States doesn’t have an official language. I didn’t believe him so I looked it up and he was right. Did anyone else know that our official language isn’t English? We don’t even have an official language!!! Crazy.
Alright moving right along…
After reading The Wanderer I felt as though a strong theme was the idea of kinship. His need to be connected to his lord was so great. I really felt like this connects to a fairly new concept known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, particularly the third level—love/belonging. Maybe Abraham Maslow observed everything from the way people interacted in society to how societal interaction was expressed in English literature, such as The Wanderer. I just find it very interesting that the concept can be seen, from my point of view, in such old literature. In the final lines of The Wanderer, the narrator says “a man must never utter too quickly his breast’s passion, unless he knows first how to achieve remedy, as a leader with his courage,” which made me feel as though men have always been viewed as the epitome of masculinity. They need to keep their emotions to themselves, have the solution to the problems they face internally and get through all of this in stride. I feel like men are still viewed in that light—having to suppress their emotions in front of others. Not that it really happens that way….
In the Wife’s Lament, you could also see a very strong emotional connection from this woman to her lord. Whether the relationship was arranged or by chance, the wife still has utter respect for her lord and is completely loyal to him. That’s fine and all, but I really don’t think I would want to live in a cave under an oak tree and wait. I have ADD so I would probably forget why I was waiting and chase a butterfly.
That's all I can concentrate on for now. More of my "brilliance" later.
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