Cynewulf

(ca. 770–ca. 840)

   Cynewulf was an OLD ENGLISH poet active in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Four works are attributed to him by modern scholars: The Fates of the Apostles and Elene (both preserved in the VERCELLI BOOK), and Juliana and the Ascension— sometimes called Christ II (both preserved in the EXETER BOOK). In these texts Cynewulf utilized a powerful new idea: writing about Christian subject matter in the oral style of Old English ALLITERATIVE VERSE.

   Nothing certain is known about Cynewulf beyond his name. That name occurs as a kind of signature in the epilogues of the four poems attributed to him: In each of these works, the author inserts runes, embedded in the texts, that spell out his name. In The Fates of the Apostles, this even takes the form of an acrostic, creating a playful tone not unlike the Old English RIDDLES. Cynewulf was a very common name in Old English, and attempts to identify the writer with some known historical personage, like Bishop Cynewulf of Lindesfarne (737–780), have been unsuccessful. Equally unproductive have been attempts to look at the four poems’ epilogues as autobiographical statements. All four present the poet as a sinful man requesting the prayers of his readers. In Elene he says that he is an aged man who, after leading a sinful life, has received God’s grace and the gift of poetic inspiration in his old age. But such declarations are typical of this kind of religious verse, and there is no reason to take them as anything but convention. The one thing that can be said with some certainty about Cynewulf is that he was from either Northumbria or, more likely, Mercia, based on his language. It is even possible that no single poet named Cynewulf existed, and that the runic inscriptions are a poetic game creating a fictional narrator for the four poems.

   The poems themselves share a kind of typological style that examines the lives of Christ, his apostles, and his saints, and sees in them examples of how to live a moral life in the face of coming judgment, both individual and universal. Each poem ends with Cynewulf anticipating his own judgment. The Fates of the Apostles is his shortest poem, at 122 lines. In it Cynewulf juxtaposes the apostolic virtues with his own life. Juliana is a SAINT’S LIFE of 731 lines, in which Juliana’s virtues are extolled, and readers are asked to pray to St. Juliana for Cynewulf ’s soul. The Ascension (426 lines) is a poem about the Ascension of Christ that was placed in the Exeter Book between two other poems on Christ, the first on the Incarnation and the last on the Second Coming. Originally thought to be three sections of a single poem, the texts are all related in subject matter and style, and Cynewulf ’s Ascension (or Christ II) provides a bridge between the first and last sections. It is unknown whether Cynewulf himself inserted his poem here, or whether the anonymous compiler of the Exeter Book had the idea to link the other poems with Cynewulf’s. In either case it was an inspired idea.

   Cynewulf ’s most admired work is Elene, the story of the finding of the True Cross by Elene, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. Also his longest work at 1,321 lines, the poem enumerates a number of conversion experiences associated with the cross, including Constantine’s vision of the cross before the Battle of Milvian Bridge. The epilogue depicts a final conversion: that of Cynewulf himself.

   Over the years Cynewulf has been put forward as the author of many other poems in the Old English corpus, including The Phoenix, The DREAM OF THE ROOD, and ANDREAS, all of which are similar in style to the four signed poems. Modern scholars no longer accept such attributions, though, and there is even some doubt, as mentioned earlier, that a poet by the name of Cynewulf actually existed. We have no way of knowing the truth. However, as Olsen points out (1994), the important thing is that, among his contemporaries, Cynewulf “was conceived as an individual in the modern sense.”

   Bibliography

   ■ Anderson, Earl R. Cynewulf: Structure, Style, and Theme in His Poetry. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983.

   ■ Calder, Daniel C. Cynewulf. Boston: Twayne, 1981.

   ■ Greenfield, Stanley B., and Daniel C. Calder. A New Critical History of Old English Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

   ■ Gordon, R. K., trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Dent, 1970.

   ■ Sisam, Kenneth. “Cynewulf and His Poetry,” Proceedings of the British Academy 18 (1932): 1–28.