CYNEWULF, the only Old English vernacular poet, known by name, of whom any undisputed writings are extant. He is the author of four poems preserved in two mss., the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book, both of the early 11th century. An epilogue to each poem contains the runic characters answering to the letters c, y, n (e), w, u, 1, f. The runes are to be read as the words that served as their names ; these words enter into the metre of the verse, and (except in one poem) are significant in their context.
In Juliana and Elene the name is spelt Cynewulf ; in The Ascension the form is Cynwulf. In The Fates of the Apostles the page is defaced, but the spelling Cynwulf is almost certain. The absence of the E in The Ascension can hardly be due to a scribal omission, for the name of this letter (meaning "horse") would not suit the context ; this was perhaps the motive for the choice of the shorter form. The orthography (authenticated as the poet's own by the nature of his device) has chronological significance. If the poems had been written before 740, the spelling would al most certainly have been Cyniwulf. From the scanty extant evi dence we should conclude that the form Cynwulf came in about Boo, and the four works may therefore be referred provisionally to the beginning of the 9th century, any lower date being for lin guistic and metrical reasons improbable. The mss. of the poems are in the West-Saxon dialect, but Prof. E. Sievers's arguments for a Northumbrian original have considerable weight.
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. There are pleasing passages in Elene, but the clumsy and tasteless narration of the Latin original is faithfully repro duced, and the added descriptions of battles and voyages are strings of conventional phrases, with no real imagination. In The Ascension the genuine religious fervour imparts a higher tone to the poetry ; the piece has real but not extraordinary merit. Of the other two poems no critic has much to say in praise.
Until recently it was commonly thought that Cynewulf's author ship of the Riddles (q.v.) in the Exeter Book was beyond dis pute. Some of the Riddles have been shown by Prof. E. Sievers to be older than Cynewulf's time; that he may have written some of the rest remains a bare possibility. The similarity of tone in the three poems known as the Christ affords some presumption of common authorship. Both The Incarnation and The Last Judg ment contain many passages of remarkable power and beauty. The Christ is followed in the ms. by two poems on Saint Guthlac, the second of which is generally, and with much probability, as signed to Cynewulf. The first Guthlac poem is almost universally believed to be by another hand. Cynewulf's reputation can gain little by the attribution to him of Guthlac. Very different would be the effect of the establishment of his much disputed claim to Andreas, a picturesque version of the legend of the Apostle Andrew. The poem abounds to an astonishing extent in "Cyne wulfian" phrases, but it is contended that these are due to imita tion. If the author of Andreas imitated Elene and Juliana, he bettered his model. Cynewulf's authorship has been asserted by some scholars for The Dream of the Rood, the noblest example of Old English religious poetry. But an extract from this poem is carved on the Ruthwell Cross; and, notwithstanding the argu ments of Prof. A. S. Cook, the language of the inscription seems too early for Cynewulf's date. The similarities between the Dream and Elene are therefore probably due to Cynewulf's ac quaintance with the older poem. The only remaining attribution that deserves notice is that of the Phoenix. The author of this fine poem was, like Cynewulf, a scholar, and uses many of his turns of expression, but he was a man of greater genius than is shown in Cynewulf's signed compositions.
For the older literature relating to Cynewulf, see R. Wiilker, Grundriss der angelsdchsischen Litteratur (1885). References to the most important later discussions will be found in M. Trautmann, Kynewulf, der Bischof and Dichter (1898) , and the introductions and notes to the editions of Cynewulf's Christ, by I. Gollancz (1892) and A. S. Cook (1900) . For the arguments for Cynewulf's authorship of Andreas, see F. Ramhorst, Andreas and Cynewulf (1885). See also C. W. Kennedy, the Poems of Cynewulf Translated into English Prose (191o) ; A. S. Cook, "Cynewulf's Part in our Beouwulf," Conn. Ac. Arts and Sci. xxvii. (1925).