Asher Period 3 Team 2 Synthesis

Anglo-Saxon writing is, to say the least, conflicted. The piece of writing that best shows this conflict of ideas is the poem, The Seafarer. This poem, which is initially a narrative of a seafarer, later becomes an exaltation of God, and the narrator shifts away from the topic of the sea, instead talking about the religion and the after-life. Here is where the poem becomes a clash of ideas. For one, the narrator constantly mentions God, which is the influence of Christian ideas on the traditionally Pagan Anglo-Saxons. Second, the narrator talks about the path to heaven, saying that, “Men may bury treasured pelf beside their brother born remains and sow his grave with golden goods he goes where gold is worthless.” This is the basis of the greek/anglo-saxon cultural divide. The Christian influence on the Anglo-Saxons furthered the divide between the Greek Pagan burials, and the Anglo-Saxon funeral pyres. The Christian influences on the Anglo-Saxons de-emphasized worldly goods and lead to the increased emphasis on the intangible processes of going to the after-life; funeral pyres were a way of removing any earthly value from the body, which would of course in their eyes be useless anyway. This is in direct contrast to the Greek pagan burials, in which people were buried with valuables, gold and jewelry that they believed would carry on to the next life. The Seafarer displays this relationship through religious belief, and one can see how Christianity influenced the religious practices of the Anglo-Saxons, taking it ever further from the pagan rituals into a more profoundly ethereal practice.