For Friday: "The Ruin" and "Deor" (in The Wanderer: Elegies, Epics, Riddles"

For Friday's class, I want you to read the following two short poems:

"The Ruin" (pp.2-3)
"Deor" (pp.14-15)

For the first two readings, I won't give you any questions to respond to (we'll do some in-class writing instead). However, I do have some instructions for you:

1. READ IT ALOUD: As Michael Alexander says in his A Note on the Translation: "I must further strain the sympathy of the reader by asking him [or her] to read these translations aloud , and with as much vigour and deliberation as he finds the line warrants" (xxv). So have fun with it: scream, declaim, bellow, resound, and boom. Don't worry about the meaning the first or second time around--just note the sounds and rhythms of the piece.

2. READ IT MORE THAN ONCE: If you just read each poem once and toss the book aside, it might not be very useful for you. Poetry increases with re-readings; in the same way, the first time you hear a song it might go right over your head. But when you hear it the fourth or fifth time, it becomes your new favorite song. Read it aloud, then silently, then aloud again. They're very short so this should be easy to do. 

3. LOOK FOR METAPHORS: After you've read it several times, look for how the poet and Anglo-Saxon culture translates one experience in the terms of another. We have metaphors such as "time = money" which helps us understand how time works in relation to how we spend, borrow, and save money. How do they help their readers/listeners understand the realities of their own world? 

ALSO...I've pasted a link below which has the poet Ezra Pound reading his translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem The Seafarer (which we'll read in a week or so): this might give you a sense of how people used to read poetry, and how Michael Alexander envisions you reading this poetry to yourself and others.