The Eighth Deadly Sin: Dejection as Passion in The Wanderer

Abstract

Since the nineteenth century, the Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer has been classified as an Old English elegy. Drawing on Evagrius Ponticus's Praktikos and John Cassian's The Institutes, this thesis reexamines our traditional methods of classification for this Exeter Book poem by using an early eastern Christian version of the seven deadly sins--the deadly passions--as a new interpretive framework.