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Abstract
The Old English poem The Seafarer is widely recognized for its homiletic nature, bringing the language of theology into what would otherwise be easily classified as an elegy. These theological underpinnings do not come from nowhere but are instead part of a tradition beginning with early Christian theologians Augustine and Boethius and entering early medieval England through the translations attributed to Alfred the Great of the Soliloquies and Consolation of Philosophy. Taken in conversation with each other, The Seafarer and both the Latin originals and the Old English translations of the Soliloquies and Consolation of Philosophy paint a picture of a worldview designed to give practical hope to those living in an unstable and uncertain world, a worldview which is also evidence for a single-voice reading of The Seafarer.