Essay -- "Deor" Re-Examined: A Lament of Common Woe

"Deor", an Old English poem found in the tenth-century poetry collection The Book of Exeter, is generally considered to be a song of lament for the poet's own misfortune. The poem consists of a series of seven stanzas that describe the travails of well-known historical individuals and groups. As the final stanza contains an account of the ostensible poet's own misfortune – being removed from his position as court poet – scholars have conjectured that the poet's aim in depicting these historical travails is to compare these with his own fate. However, the final stanza does not constitute the poem's final words. The poem ends with the refrain that recurs after every stanzaic description of misfortune in the work – "Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!" – "that passed over, this can too". The placement of the refrain after the final stanza indicates that, just like the other historical hardships, the poet's grief over his demotion, too, has passed. Deor's lament, then, is not for his own hardship. Instead, the poet offers consolation for some other woe, common to both Deor and his audience.

The poem's structure is not incidental, nor is the poet's use of the stanza-refrain format thoughtless. The poem is structured as follows. A roman numeral denotes a non-refrain stanza.

(i) Weland's exile
Refrain
(ii) Bedohild's pregnancy
Refrain
(iii) Mathilde's love trials
Refrain
(iv) Theodoric's rule over the Merovingians
Refrain
(v) Eormanric's rule over the Goths
Refrain
(vi) Generic man's misery reversed by God 
-- (No refrain)
(vii) Deor is replaced by Heorrenda
Refrain

 

Figure 1

The poet does not automatically position a refrain after each stanza. It is only stanzas that contain descriptions of travails that have come and passed which merit the refrain "That passed over – this can too". The first five stanzas depict historical events that are firmly in the past and can therefore be drawn upon for proof that hardships do indeed pass. The sixth stanza, however, contains a description of an everyman steeped in sorrow, and the advice that God often reverses the situation of the unfortunate (lines 28-32: "The sorrowful anxious man sits, cut off from happiness… he can consider then that throughout this world/ the wise Lord often brings about change"). There would be no sense in succeeding this stanza by the refrain because it does not describe a historical woe that has passed; and indeed, the poet withholds the refrain.

As we consider this singular absence of the refrain, we must equally carefully consider the presence of the refrain after the final stanza. "I will say this about myself/ that for a time I was poet of the Heodenings … Heorrenda/ The man skilful in song, has got the revenues that the protector of men earlier gave me" (35-41). Not only does the poet not complain about his own miserable state, but he is careful to stress his recovery from his situation and show his present strength, by praising his poetic adversary and naming him "skilful in song". The poet's emphasis is not inward, but outward, as he lists his sorrows as one of many that are, finally, reversed. In the refrain "that passed over, this can too", the poet utilizes the relatively distant signifier "that" to refer to his dismissal from court, just as he has to the rest of the historical hardships that have passed. The more proximate signifier "this" must therefore refer to some tragedy that the poet and his audience are experiencing together at the time of the poem's recitation.

In keeping with this alternative understanding of the poem, let us re-examine its structure. The poet carefully matches the poetic content to its placement within the poem. The progressive structure of the poem is designed to appeal to its audience and foster sympathy in them.  The structure also contains hints as to the common woe that the poet references in the refrain: the focus of the depicted historical woes narrow from individual experiences of distant legendary personages to the more communal experience of a city under siege.

Figure 1 tracks the progression of the poem's content. The poet draws his listeners in by appealing to a shared knowledge of Anglo-Saxon legends. Until the first refrain, the listeners will not guess that the poem's subject is, in fact, the listeners themselves. Instead, they are presented with the commonly known tale of Weland, who "knew exile among serpents … after Nidhad placed him under restraint" (1-5). If the audience is, indeed, suffering from hardship, the poem will seem to them as a welcome opportunity for escapism and they will gladly lend their ear – even if the reciter is a recently demoted poet. Since the refrain signifier "this" is never explicitly defined, the sense of mystery serves to keep the listeners engaged and guessing at its subject until the poem's end, an effect that is in play until this very day.

The second and third stanzas contain similar depictions of national mythical figures. These are ostensibly well enough known to the poet's audience that he can sacrifice background information for complex sentence structure, figurative language, and descriptions of emotions, rather than events. Thus, in stanza (ii), the first sentence "To Beadohild the death of her brothers/ Was not as sorrowful as her own situation –/ She had clearly realized/ that she was pregnant" (8-11) begins unusually with a preposition, followed by the indirect subject "To Beadohild". "She could never/ Confidently contemplate what should come of that" (11-12) is the following sentence, and its emotional content is high while its factual content is extremely vague. In stanza (iii) the poet similarly employs a factually vague, but emotionally vivid metaphor: "Geat's embraces became an abyss,/ So that the painful love deprived them [Mathilde and Geat] of sleep" (15-16).

 The poet thus, via the first three stanzas, eases his audience into difficult emotional territory using well-known personages who have experienced hardships. However, even though these are ostensibly remote from the audience's own reality, he peppers these stanzas with implicit advice about contending with hardships. About Weland, he relates that "the single minded man pulled through hardship" despite having "sorrow and longing as fellow travelers / on the winter-cold exile" (2-4). The poet promotes stoicism and optimism as desirable states of mind through characters who overcame their troubles, as well as through the optimistic mantra "that passed over – this can too". But he also promotes another important value for a group experiencing strife – community spirit. The third stanza is extremely succinct with its length of just three lines, because "many of us have heard about Mathilde" (14). He deprives his audience of a longer description of her woes, but for those audience members who are interested in more details about the tragic heroine, the poem contains a reference to the appropriate authority – their friends.

From the suffering of remote heroic figures in lore, the poet turns to depictions of the suffering of many. Stanza (iv) is the briefest of all, numbering just two lines. "For thirty years Theodoric held/ The city of the Merovingians. Many knew that" (18-19). The poet here provides no more than the dry facts of the narrative, whereas in previous stanzas it was the emotional aspect of the travails that he emphasized. This could mean that the information is of so little interest to the audience that the siege merits only two lines, or that the history is too well-known to reiterate. I argue, however, that precisely because the siege is of so much interest to the audience it is given only two lines: the audience members will easily supply the emotions that match the occasion themselves, because they are experiencing similar troubles. The poet need only allude in the briefest to this event to elicit a great emotional response from his audience. The refrain, in this case, becomes more important than ever: "That [event, which is so like our own situation] passed over – this can too".

After the initial reaction, however, the poet does explore a siege situation more deeply. Again he calls upon the common experience to soothe emotions, as stanza (v) begins with "We have learned about Eormanric's/ wolfish mind" (21-22; my emphasis). He continues, "widely he ruled the people/ of the Goths' kingdom. That was a cruel king" (21-22). The poet does not bash the man who stole his job (Heorrenda, "the man skilful in song"), but he does decry a bad king who caused many strangers misery a long time ago. This seemingly odd burst of poetic violence against a strange king makes sense if we accept that the poem is a lament about a siege by a similarly evil ruler that is occurring during the poet's present day, and not a self-absorbed harangue about a demotion. The poet goes on to describe the historical community under siege: "many a man sat bound with sorrows, / Expecting woe, often wished/ that the kingdom would be conquered" (24-26).

From particularized historical incidents, the poem progresses to a generalized description of the psychology of misery. The description, of course, is applicable to the poet's audience. "The sorrowful anxious man sits, cut off from happiness, / Darkening in the mind, it seems to him/ His share of hardship is endless" (28-30). The poet does not leave his listeners desolate, but instead goes on to offer hope of consolation: "the wise Lord often brings about change" (32). But he is not is not so imprudent as to promise unmitigated optimism, and warns that while "on many man he bestows favour," other men God endows with a "share of woe" (33-34).

The poet's self-reference "I will say this about myself" is not an establishment of the poem's climax. Quite the contrary: it is an apologetic statement, a disclaimer. The poet recognizes that his troubles pale in comparison to those that he has depicted in the previous stanzas, of exile and illegitimate pregnancy and painful love, all grand epic tragedies. Why does he then conclude with his own troubles? The poet tentatively situates himself within the community, the sense of which he has worked so hard to establish via allusions to his listeners' common experience and depictions of the everyman's troubles. By describing his triumph over his own troubles, the poet cites his experience as living evidence of the existence of hope. The poet praises Heorrenda because he is gracious, and not sour, about his losses. "For many years I had a good post, / A loyal lord – until now" (38-39), he says, indicating that he is still bereft of his position as court poet. Even though he has no job, however, the poet repeats the refrain – "that passed over – this can too", that is: emotionally and mentally and practically he has overcome the hardship, as he is still practicing his craft. The mere act of reciting the poem becomes proof of the positivity of existence.

I, therefore, propose that the poem be renamed. No longer should it bear a title that implicates the poet as the poem's self-involved subject, but instead one that does homage to the poet's humility and sensitivity. "Deor: A Lament of Common Woe". 

Image by Amir Esrafili