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Updated: May 12, 2025
There is a valuable thing which we possess, known as the "Alfred Jewel": it has on it an inscription which we can truly say applies to far more than this work of art. Its application to Alfred's work is indeed a very wide one: Alfred commanded to make me. Some of greatest pre-Conquest poetry associated with name of Cynewulf. Guesses about him. Little known.
There is a suggestion here of the future Sir Launfal and the search for the Holy Grail. DECLINE OF NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE. The same northern energy which had built up learning and literature so rapidly in Northumbria was instrumental in pulling it down again. Toward the end of the century in which Cynewulf lived, the Danes swept down on the English coasts and overwhelmed Northumbria.
Cynewulf is the only great Anglo-Saxon poet who affixed his name to certain poems and thus settled the question of their authorship. We know nothing of his life except what we infer from his poetry. He was probably born near the middle of the eighth century, and it is not unlikely that he passed part of his youth as a thane of some noble.
It must not be supposed that either Cynewulf or Redwald expected to conquer the Mercians with ten thousand men. No, their design was simpler: they had learned where Edgar was residing, and that the forces around him were small. One bold stroke might secure his person, and then Edwy might make his own terms. This was the secret of the advice they both gave to the young king.
Cynewulf, being a Northumbrian, presumably wrote in the old Northumbrian language such as is inscribed on the cross, but all his poems as they have come down to us have passed into the West Saxon tongue, and if the fragment on the Ruthwell Cross is, as modern archxologists aver, later than the Dream in the Vercelli Codex it must be a re-translation into the dialect in which it was first written.
The poet lies beholding the wondrous sight: the sight that all God's fair angels beheld, and all the universe, and men of mortal breath. The Rood speaks to Cynewulf. To us, with every look upon the Cross, should come, would come, were we alive all through with keen, sweet, spiritual life, the voice telling of the Passion, of the victory, of the glory.
At first Edwy could scarcely believe the report; but Cynewulf, the experienced commander upon whom, as we have said, the real command of the force devolved, rode forward, and soon returned, having previously ordered a general halt, and that entrenchments should be thrown up for their own protection during the night.
The poems I am going to bring before you now are the "Elene" and a poem on the Holy Cross, which has been attributed to Cynewulf, and which I for one and I am not by any means alone in this love to believe that he must have written. The "Phoenix," about which we thought in a former chapter, has by some been supposed to be his.
Among the poems of this age, we may emphasize: the shorter scopic pieces, of which the Far Traveler, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Fortunes of Men, and The Battle of Brunanburh are important examples; Beowulf, the greatest Anglo-Saxon epic poem, which describes the deeds of an unselfish hero, shows how the ancestors of the English lived and died, and reveals the elemental ideals of the race; the Caedmonian Cycle of scriptural paraphrases, some of which have Miltonic qualities; and the Cynewulf Cycle, which has the most variety and lyrical excellence.
He saw those of his own followers who had not yet made good their escape, ridden down, cut to pieces, slaughtered in the excitement of the moment without mercy; the sight stung him, be would have sallied out to their defence, but Cynewulf, who was yet living, met him in the gateway, and sternly seized the bridle of his steed.
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