THE GEOGRAPHY OF ALTERITY: THE ROLE OF WATER IN OLD
THE GEOGRAPHY OF ALTERITY: THE ROLE OF WATER IN OLD

Summary/Abstract: Most of us today would associate water with something positive: a cool glass of liquid to quench our thirst, a refreshing shower, or a sandy beach where we can relax. In our modern world, threatened by climate change and pollution, we all know that water is precious, we have been taught that it is where life first developed and we are constantly reminded of the importance of staying hydrated. The Anglo-Saxons, living on an island, could not have escaped the significance of water. However, what is for us the source of life became in their poetry the symbol of the vulnerability of human existence. In the poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, water represents the beginning of a journey into the unknown, the boundary between human experience and a hostile other-world. In the poems of the so-called elegies group, the exilespeakers move in a dead, isolated space, outside the context of community and society. In their attempts to (re)construct their identity, their surroundings become the external manifestation of their inner turmoil, a geography of the mind. Water, a significant element of this geography, represents the force separating the speakers from their former existence, the embodiment of the alterity of their world. In the elegies, water is closely associated with negative emotions; it becomes

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