1a. What did the speaker's "lord" do as told in lines 6–7? What did the speaker then do? What did the lord's kinsmen do?
2a. In lines 18–21, what does the speaker's beloved hide from her? What is his "bearing" toward her like? What did the two used to boast? What has happened to their "loving friendship"?
3a. Where do the lord and his kinsmen force the speaker to live? To what does the speaker contrast her situation in lines 32–33? What does the speaker say about her former beloved's situation in lines 46–47? Where does the speaker say her beloved is in the last stanza?
4a. Identify the different emotions the speaker expresses toward or about her beloved in this poem
5a. Explain whether you think the speaker judges her beloved's actions and situation, both past and present, accurately and fairly or whether she allows her emotions and imagination to make up some of the details.
1b. How does the speaker feel about this person she calls her "lord"? What signs are there in the second stanza that the lord felt the same way about the speaker? Why might the kinsmen have acted as they did?
2b. Explain whether it seems as if the kinsmen have succeeded in separating the speaker from her beloved. How does the speaker feel about their "boast" now?
3b. In what way is the speaker's situation different from that of the "friends on earth"? According to the speaker, in what way is her beloved's situation similar to her own, both physically and emotionally?
4b. What do the speaker's feelings reveal about her as a person? about the way she is coping with a broken romantic relationship?
5b. Describe a time in your own life when strong emotions altered your perception of events.
Elegiac Lyric. For what does the speaker of "The Wife's Lament" express grief?
Aphorism. Identify the aphorism that appears at the poem's end. Explain how this aphorism relates to some of the feelings expressed in the poem.
1. Write a love letter from the speaker of "The Wife's Lament" to her beloved, explaining what her life is like now and how she feels about her beloved.
2. Some of the saddest and most moving poems in literature have inspired humorous parodies. Write a humorous limerick parodying the story of "The Wife's Lament." A limerick is a form of light verse with five lines in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme.
3. Write a short short story based on some of the details of "The Wife's Lament," but set in the present day.
Compound Words and Using Colorful Language. Anglo-Saxon writing often makes use of an imaginative type of compound called a kenning. Kennings are like word puzzles, or miniature riddles, used in place of common terms. For example, whale-road is a kenning the Anglo-Saxons sometimes used for sea. In "The Wife's Lament," the speaker uses the compound summerlong to imaginatively describe how long her days spent weeping seem to her. Try coming up with your own imaginative compounds to replace the common compound nouns listed below.
1. heartbroken
2. soft-spoken
3. snowstorm
4. sunshine
5. parking lot
