Though we can't be sure about the gender of the writer, we know for sure that the speaker in "The Wife's Lament" is a woman. The fact that this poem is written from a woman's perspective is extremely significant, regardless of authorship. In fact, it is one of the first known examples of a female-voiced narrative in British literature.
The reality is that we really don't know a whole lot about gender roles in Anglo-Saxon English culture; a great deal of our historical knowledge of the period we receive from the writings of monks, who didn't exactly get out much. But this text gives us some amount of insight, demonstrating that women could be storytellers, active players in society, and certainly not pushovers.
Questions About Women and Femininity
- Would you consider "The Wife's Lament" a feminist text? Why or why not?
- How might we read the poem differently if we knew for sure the gender of the author?
- Do you think the speaker's sexuality (and lack of outlets for expressing it) factors into her sorrow?
Chew on This
The very telling of this tale is an act of agency by the speaker; she has the power to voice her plight.
The final section of this poem is a curse against the speaker's husband. (Take that, dude.)