Ubi Sunt (literally "where are...") is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerent?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?"
Ubi Sunt is a phrase that begins several Latin medieval poems. It refers to the tone of the poem, and can even be used to indicate the tone of another work, such as Beowulf.
It refers to the longing for the clichéd "good old days", and suggests that today can never measure up to then.
A general feeling of Ubi Sunt radiates from the text of Beowulf. The Anglo-Saxons, at the point in their cultural evolution in which Beowulf was written, experienced an inescapable feeling of doom, symptomatic of Ubi Sunt yearning.
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