Other literary forms
The “Hymn” is the only work that has been definitely attributed to Cædmon (KAHD-muhn).
Achievements
The history of Cædmon, the first voice in English poetry, is passed down through the cleric and historian Saint Bede the Venerable who, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), tells the story of the humble layman to whom the gift of poetry was given one night in a dream. Bede lists many works composed by Cædmon; the only piece that can be identified with any certainty, however, is the nine-line “Hymn” fragment in praise of God the Creator.
Brief though it is, this poem defines and directs the course of English poetry, combining for the first time the meters of Nordic heroic poetry with the subject matter of the Scriptures, Christianizing the literary tradition and speaking for a culture. That the “Hymn” was held in great esteem is evidenced by the fact that versions of it exist in seventeen manuscripts ranging from the early eighth to the later fifteenth century; Cædmon’s “Hymn” is the only piece of early poetry to have been preserved in this manner. Cædmon is a figure of shadow and legend, with a single biographical source and no written records; his hymn is a rich and appropriate beginning for the English poetic tradition.
Bibliography
Bessinger, Jess B., Jr., and Stanley J. Kahrl, eds. Essential Articles for the Study of Old English Poetry. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1968. A collection of twenty-six articles on Old English poetry. Offers general studies of stylistics, themes, oral influences, and metrics as well as studies of individual poets and works. The “Hymn” is mentioned numerous times, but the book is most valuable for C. L. Wrenn’s comprehensive analysis in “The Poetry of Cædmon.” Articles by Morton W. Bloomfield, Francis P. Magoun, Jr., and Robert D. Stevick also treat the “Hymn” in important ways.
Fry, Donald K. “Cædmon as a Formulaic Poet.” In Oral Literature: Seven Essays, edited by Joseph J. Duggan. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1975. Drawing on Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Fry presents Cædmon’s “Hymn” as an oral composition and Cædmon as the founder of “Old English Christian vernacular poetry.” Fry accomplishes this by examining the Latin and Old English versions of the “Hymn” to determine the genesis of diction.
_______. “The Memory of Cædmon.” In Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord, edited by John Miles Foley. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1981. Fry proposes that Cædmon’s “Hymn” was written on a formulaic basis. He defines “formulaic” as the “typical traditionally expressed” and states that this type of poetry is easy to memorize and, therefore, is more easily disseminated to the nonliterate public.
Greenfield, Stanley B., and Daniel G. Calder. A New Critical History of Old English Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1986. Although devoting only thirteen pages of text to Cædmon, this book provides excellent insight into Cædmon’s “Hymn” and problems that have confronted scholars for centuries. Useful for a broad overview of Old English literature.
Gurteen, Stephen Humphreys. The Epic Fall of Man: A Comparative Study of Cædmon, Dante, and Milton. 1896. Reprint. New York: Haskell House, 1964. Temecula, Calif.: Reprint Services, 1992. Gurteen is primarily concerned with a particular aspect of Christian poetic literature of England but has included in this study Dante’s Inferno (in La divina commedia, c. 1320; The Divine Comedy, 1802) in contrast with the strong and weak points in Cædmon’s and John Milton’s treatments of the subject. Thirty-eight illustrations.
Hieatt, Constance B. “Cædmon in Context: Transforming the Formula.” Journal of English and...
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Germanic Philology 84 (October, 1985): 485-497. Supplies evidence that Cædmon’s “Hymn” may draw not only from traditional pagan themes as background for its Christian base but also from inherited oral tradition, therefore echoing the established “type-scene.”
Ireland, Colin. “An Irish Precursor of Cædmon.” Notes and Queries 44, no. 1 (March, 1997): 2-4. Ireland discusses Colman mac Leneni and Cædmon and the traits they shared.
Kennedy, Charles W., trans. The Cædmon Poems. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1916. This older translation offers a host of supporting materials, including the translator’s introduction, other major Anglo-Saxon poems, reproductions of the drawings of the Junius Manuscript, and a bibliography.
O’Keeffe, Katherine O’Brien. “Orality and the Developing Text of Cædmon’s ’Hymn.’” In Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. O’Keeffe analyzes the composition of most extant versions of the poem, with attention to such matters as spacing, spelling, punctuation, word division, and capitalization. She relates Cædmon’s “Hymn” to the rich tradition of oral poetry and explores scribal awareness of the distinctions between Old English transcription and classical Latin verse.
Smith, A. H., ed. Three Northumbrian Poems. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968. Smith provides texts of and extensive commentary on three Old English poems: Bede’s Death Song, Cædmon’s “Hymn,” and The Leiden Riddle, a poem related to a Latin riddle of Aldhelm. The commentary on each discusses authorship, manuscripts, date, and location of the extant texts, and spelling and variants of the existing texts. Heavily annotated; includes a glossary, a bibliography, and an index, along with the important manuscript versions of each poem in the original language.
Stevens, Martin, and John Mandell, eds. Old English Literature: Twenty-two Analytical Essays. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968. Contains several essays that treat Cædmon in passing. G. L. Brook’s “Old English” analyzes texts of the two dialect versions. Robert D. Stevick in “The Oral-Formulaic Analyses of Old English Verse” explores how the “Hymn” can be classified as formulaic. In an important article, “Cædmon’s ’Hymn,’” Bernard F. Huppé offers a skeptical reading of Bede’s narrative account and a careful analysis of the “Hymn.”
Wrenn, C. L. A Study of Old English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967. In a readily accessible, chronologically arranged study of Old English, Wrenn offers a highly informed overview of Anglo-Saxon literature. The chapter on Cædmon, “Cædmon and the Christian Revolution in Poetry,” relates the poet to his time, assesses his contribution, and offers a thorough analysis of the poem and its background.
Zimmermann, Gunhild. The Four Old English Poetic Manuscripts: Texts, Context, and Historical Background. Heidelberg, Germany: C. Winter, 1995. In addition to the Cædmon manuscript, includes and comments upon the Exeter book, the Vercelli book, the Nowell codex, and Old English poetry in general.
