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Cynewulf (Poet) - LoveToKnow 1911 (1331 words) |
 | Cynewulf's unquestioned poems show that he was a scholar, familiar with Latin and with religious literature, and they display much metrical skill and felicity in the use of traditional poetic language; but of the higher qualities of poetry they give little evidence. |
| Cynewulf's celebration of a midland saint is the strongest of the arguments that have been urged against his Northumbrian origin; but this consideration is insufficient to outweigh the probability derived from the linguistic evidence. |
| Cynewulf was indeed probably a Northumbrian churchman, but it is unlikely that there were not many Northumbrian churchmen bearing this common name; and as the bishop is not recorded to have written anything, the identification is at best an unsupported possibility. |
| §6. Cynewulf: His Personality. IV. Old English Christian Poetry. Vol. 1. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of ... (1022 words) |
| Turning to Cynewulf and the poems that may be, or have been, attributed to him, we are on somewhat safer ground. |
| Whether or not Cynewulf is to be identified with this ecclesiastic, there is no doubt that the assumption of Mercian origin would do away with one or two difficulties which the assumption of Northumbrian origin in the narrower sense leaves unsolved. |
| Further, assuming Guthlac B to be by Cynewulf, 9 we may note the fact that the fen-journey of the original has been transformed into a sea-voyage, and this would appear to tell against an East Anglian authorship. |
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