The “Exeter Book” (Exeter, Cathedral Library, 3501) is the name conventionally given to one of the major collections of Old English poetry, containing about one-sixth of the surviving corpus. The contents, which are both secular and religious, provide a remarkable conspectus of later Anglo-Saxon poetic culture, and include several of the best-known anthology pieces (The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife’s Lament), as well as other texts (such as the so-called “wisdom poems”) which are attracting renewed attention after a long period of comparative neglect. The present article discusses the origin and physical construction of the manuscript and gives an overview of its contents; many of the poe

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Published 06 June 2003

Citation: Jackson, Peter. "Exeter Book". The Literary Encyclopedia. 6 June 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5241, accessed 20 November 2009.]