Analysis
Cynewulf’s name is known to students of Old English poetry because, in the conclusions of the four poems that can be attributed to him with certainty, he “signed” his name in runic letters. The name, however, was not deciphered until 1840. Cynewulf did not write his name directly, but wove the runes into the concluding meditations of his poems, so that they can be read not only as letters spelling his name, but also as symbols representing words that form part of the poetry. This riddling device—with both personal and poetic purposes—is typical of Cynewulf’s poetry, which often applies devices used in earlier heroic and secular poetry to his meditative religious verse.
Cynewulf’s canon
Cynewulf’s four poems are extant in two of the four major manuscript collections of Old English poetry, both copied around the year 1000 in the West Saxon dialect. The Exeter Book, now in the Exeter Cathedral Library, contains Christ II and Juliana; the Vercelli Book, located in the northern Italian cathedral library of Vercelli, includes The Fates of the Apostles and Elene. Nineteenth century scholars, driven by the rare discovery of a poet’s name from a period of general anonymity, attributed all the religious verse in these two manuscripts to Cynewulf. Just as Caedmon was considered to be the author of the poems dealing with Old Testament subjects extant in the Junius manuscript, so Cynewulf became the author of the saints’ lives and allegorical poetry of the Exeter and Vercelli manuscripts. Only Beowulf (c. 1000), found in the fourth major manuscript, escaped being attributed with confidence to Cynewulf.
This poetry does in some respects share stylistic and thematic features with the four poems of Cynewulf. The two Guthlac poems (“A” and “B”) treat the life and death of the eighth century hermit Saint Guthlac. Like Juliana, Cynewulf’s account of the martyrdom of Saint Juliana, these poems deal with a saint who was challenged and harassed by demons. Guthlac is a Mercian saint associated with Croyland Abbey in Lincolnshire, an area perhaps connected with Cynewulf. Furthermore, Guthlac B, based on the Latin Vita Guthlaci by Felix of Croyland, shares several stylistic devices with the “signed” poems. Because in the Exeter Book its conclusion is missing, it is possible that it may have closed with a passage containing Cynewulf’s name.
Also stylistically related to Cynewulf’s poetry is The Dream of the Rood. Found not only in the Vercelli Book but also in fragments inscribed in runes on the Ruthwell Cross (located in southwest Scotland), this dream vision shares certain descriptive passages with Elene. Whereas Elene describes Constantine’s conversion and Saint Helena’s discovery of the cross, The Dream of the Rood concentrates on Christ’s crucifixion; nevertheless, both share a devotion to the glorious cross of victory. Now usually dated earlier than Cynewulf’s poetry, The Dream of the Rood has been called one of the greatest religious lyrics in the English language. It certainly is the best of the “Cynewulfian group,” those poems associated with, but not now attributed to, Cynewulf.
The other poems attributed by nineteenth century scholars to Cynewulf share fewer stylistic and thematic elements with the four signed poems. Andreas, a saint’s legend based on the apocryphal Latin Acts of Saints Andrew and Matthew, was long tied to The Fates of the Apostles, a summary description of the deaths of Christ’s disciples. Because The Fates of the Apostles—considered to be an epilogue to Andreas, which precedes it in the Vercelli Book—contained the runic signature, scholars reasoned that Andreas must also be by Cynewulf. Similarly, Christ I...
(This entire section contains 3815 words.)
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(Advent) and Christ III (Last Judgment) were attributed to Cynewulf before critical analysis subdivided Christ into three distinct poems. Although the three may be thematically related and perhaps were even brought together by Cynewulf, only Christ II (lines 441-866) concludes with the runic signature. It is a meditation on, and explication of, the significance of Christ’s Ascension. Christ I, a series of antiphons for use in Vespers during the week preceding Christmas, is, according to Claes Schaar, “fairly close to Cynewulf’s poetry,” whereas Christ III, a rather uneven picture of the Last Judgment and the terrors awaiting the sinful, is definitely not by Cynewulf. The Phoenix, an allegorical treatment of Christ’s Resurrection; Physiologus, a series of allegorized interpretations of natural history; and Wulf and Eadwacer, once understood as a riddle containing Cynewulf’s name, are today not associated with Cynewulf.
Nineteenth century understanding of the Cynewulf canon had a certain balance and symmetry, which is attractive. If Caedmon dealt with the epic themes of the Old Testament, Cynewulf emphasized themes more exclusively Christian: allegories of salvation, events in the life of Christ, and the stories of the early martyrs. This poetry spanned Christian history from Palestine in the first century to England in the eighth; from Christ’s birth (Christ I) to his death (The Dream of the Rood), Resurrection (The Phoenix), and Ascension (Christ II); from the foundation of the church by the first missionaries (The Fates of the Apostles and Andreas) to the suffering of the martyrs (Juliana), the official recognition of Christianity by the Roman Empire (Elene), and the continuity of the tradition of the hermit saint in England (Guthlac). This broad survey of Christian history not unexpectedly concluded with a description of the Last Judgment (Christ III).
The analyses of S. K. Das and Schaar in the 1940’s, however, have limited Cynewulf’s canon to the four poems containing his name, leaving one to wonder whether even these rather varied and differing works would have survived the complex and thorough stylistic and linguistic analyses if they had not concluded with a runic signature. Resembling the effect of higher criticism of the Bible, Old English scholarship has reduced Cynewulf from being the author of a large and diverse body of verse to being the composer of 2,600 lines: The Fates of the Apostles (122 lines), Juliana (731 lines), Elene (1,321 lines), and Christ II (426 lines).
The four poems
Cynewulf’s four poems vary in length, subject, complexity, and style, yet they may be characterized as sharing similar source materials, purposes, and themes. All four are essentially didactic Christian poems, based on Latin prose originals, probably composed with the liturgical calendar in mind, and perhaps to be read as poetic meditations accompanying other monastic readings. The poems are didactic and specifically Christian in that their major purpose is to teach or celebrate significant events of salvation history. The four reflect a variety of Latin originals and specific types of monastic readings, meditative practice, and exegetical thought. In The Fates of the Apostles, Cynewulf notes that he borrowed from many holy books, and he clearly takes pride in his knowledge and use of the “authorities” throughout his work.
Thematically, Cynewulf’s poems reflect an interest also typical of his time and of monastic literature, the cosmic conflict between the forces of good and evil. This conflict is portrayed in both human and supernatural terms, sometimes in brief summaries of Christian suffering, sometimes in long debates and complaints. To highlight this conflict, Cynewulf establishes polarities of good and evil. The devil and his cohorts are clearly opposed to Christ and his faithful. Emperors and the wealthy persecute martyrs and the poor, and the headstrong Jews oppose the reasonable Christians. Idols contrast with Christian worship; lust attacks virginity; the law cannot conquer grace.
Characters are either black or white, symbols of good or evil rather than individual. While imprisoned, Juliana is suddenly visited by a demon pretending to be an angel. Her suitor, who in the Latin sources is merely a pragmatic Roman official, is portrayed by Cynewulf as a champion of paganism. There must be no hesitation, no sense that characters may have a divided mind. When the actors in this cosmic drama do change, they do not develop characters but flip from one extreme to another, as if shifting masks. In Elene, Judas shifts from being a miracle-working Christian bishop. Paralleling the career of Saul in the New Testament, whose conversion from persecutor to persecuted is signaled by a change of his name to Paul, Judas’s name is changed to Cyriacus. As in the New Testament, which lies behind Cynewulf’s Latin sources, there definitely is no place for the lukewarm.
Cynewulf’s poems draw on the recorded victories of the faithful in the past to teach Christians in the present to uphold their inheritance of truth. This didactic purpose is accomplished by two means: Cynewulf portrays past events as types or symbols that can be applied to contemporary Christians, and he inserts personal comments in the conclusion of his poems, confessing his own need to follow the examples of the past and to repent in the present. As in the past, Christ gave power to the saints to withstand the forces of Satan, so in the continuing battle between good and evil, he gives power to overcome temptation. The monastic communities, which understood themselves to be the inheritors of the tradition begun by the martyrs, will likewise conquer evil. The cosmic battle, given personal application, is made urgent by the concluding meditations on the transitory nature of the world, on the Last Judgment, and on the joys of heaven. In the future, contemporary events will be judged according to their place in the battle lines, and those joining the forces of Christianity will be appropriately rewarded.
The Fates of the Apostles
Basically a catalog listing the missionary activities and deaths of Christ’s twelve apostles, The Fates of the Apostles is based on various Latin historical martyrologies. Its brief accounts of the early Christian missionaries may have been intended for reading during November to celebrate the martyred saints. Of Cynewulf’s four poems, The Fates of the Apostles is considered as “the least effective” and “inferior” by several critics. Such evaluations probably reflect modern contempt not only for the poem’s subject but also for its form. To the Anglo-Saxon Christian community, however, sharing strong missionary impulses, interested in converting pagans, and claiming to be both historically and universally established, the poem’s subject is a proclamation of legitimacy. Its form, furthermore, would not seem odd in an age when Christian chronicles were often composed in poetry and the poet was caretaker of the community’s memory. Such catalogs have an honorable parentage both in the Old and New Testaments and in classical literature—in the catalogs of Homer, for example.
More appreciative critics have sought through elaborate numerical and grammatical analysis to complicate the poem, to see it as more than a simple catalog, as mannered, mystical, and even ironic. However, what seems most obvious about The Fates of the Apostles is its simplicity of purpose and structure. It establishes, in the clearest possible outline, the conflict between good and evil: Christian heroes, courageously obeying Christ’s command to go into all nations, preach to the heathen, and suffer martyrdom. These deeds are related to the poet, his world, and his heavenly goals through the poem’s prologue and epilogue.
Mentioning each of the twelve apostles in turn, Cynewulf follows a simple pattern with appropriate variations: “We have heard how X taught the people in, or journeyed to, Y and died at the hands of Z.” The specific acts are introduced by a personal comment on the poet’s own weariness and similarly conclude with a personal request that those who hear the poem will pray to the apostles for him. Then follows the runic signature, which inverts the spelling of his name to read “FWULCYN.” The runes are woven as a riddle into a meditation on the mutability of earthly joy and wealth. The poet then refers to himself as a wanderer—a motif of long standing in Christian thought, which rejects this world as a home—and concludes with a reminder of the true home of all Christians, Heaven.
Juliana
Juliana is a classic saint’s life. Based on a Latin prose life or one of Saint Bede’s sources, the poem narrates the various human and devilish tortures and temptations withstood by Saint Juliana, who died about 305-311 and whose martyrdom is celebrated in the Christian calendar on February 16. Like The Fates of the Apostles, Juliana has not fared well with critics. To Stanley Greenfield, for example, it is “the least impressive as poetry of the Cynewulf group” (Critical History of Old English Literature, 1965). In contrast to The Fates of the Apostles, it is a lengthy and somewhat repetitious account (even though lacking approximately 130 lines) of the suffering not of numerous saints but of a single martyr.
The conflict between the opposing forces of good and evil is again drawn through stark contrasts. Juliana’s suitor, Eleusius, is portrayed as possessing stores of treasure, representing earthly nobility and power. Repeatedly characterized by his wealth, he is the choice of Juliana’s father, who tells the virgin that Eleusius is better, nobler, and wealthier than she, thus deserving her love. In contrast, Juliana’s heart is set on a different bridegroom, the noble ruler of Heaven, possessing eternal wealth and divine power. As in the traditional love triangle of romance—what Northrop Frye calls “the secular scripture”—the father is enraged by his daughter’s intransigence and gives her over to her enemies. Here, however, the love triangle leads to supernatural conflict, as Juliana contrasts her Lord with Eleusius’s devils. After forcing a long confession from a demon, “the enemy of the soul,” and suffering numerous torments, Juliana is killed. Eleusius, driven mad by the ordeal of dealing with a martyr, is drowned, along with his companions.
The narrative concludes by describing the hellish destiny of Eleusius and his supporters, using the language of heroic poetry to deny the rewards traditionally given to the Germanic comitatus (the heroic band of warriors) by its chieftain. It is as if Cynewulf uses the heroic style to condemn an old heroism and to substitute a new Christian heroism, not based on violent deeds but on faithful suffering, for the destiny of Eleusius and the pagans is contrasted to the destiny of Juliana, whose martyred body is the occasion of joy in her native Nicomedia, and continuing glory for Christians. This continuity is then extended by Cynewulf to the present when he asks for aid from Saint Juliana in his own preparation for death. Weaving his name into a meditation on death—here using three groups of runes, “CYN,” “EWU,” “LF”—the poet again requests prayers from those who read his poem and asks that the ruler of Heaven stand by him at the final judgment.
Elene
Also in the tradition of the saint’s legend, Elene spins a more complicated narrative than does Juliana. Based on a version of the Inventio Sanctae Crucis similar to the Acta Cyriaci, it relates the discovery of the true cross by Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine. This event is celebrated in the liturgical calendar on May 3. Elene is generally considered to be Cynewulf’s finest poem; its description of the glorious cross gleaming in the sky is often compared with the imagery of The Dream of the Rood. Elene’s popularity may also be the result of its development of several passages in the heroic style, including Elene’s sea journey and Constantine’s war against the Huns. Using the vigorous language of battle poetry, Cynewulf here develops the motif of the beasts of battle: the raven, eagle, and wolf that traditionally frequent Old English poetic battles.
Nevertheless, Elene’s basic theme is Christian, and although it borrows epic devices, the poem’s main subject is conversion. It describes three miraculous conversions related to the discovery of the cross: Constantine’s conversion following his vision of the cross; Judas’s conversion leading to the discovery of the cross; and the conversion of the Jews after the discovery of the nails used to crucify Christ. In relating these conversions, the poem may strike modern readers as inexplicable and even offensive. The suffering of the Christian martyr memorialized in Juliana becomes here the militancy of the Christian emperor. The cross becomes the banner of war, and the nails of the cross, hammered by Roman soldiers into the flesh of Christ, become amulets for the bridle of the Roman emperor, assuring that he will vanquish all. Similarly, in contrast to the protagonist of Juliana, Elene represents imperial power and can force her beliefs on others. Thus she has Judas cast into a cistern for seven days until he acknowledges the truth of Christianity. In Cynewulf’s black-and-white view of salvation history, Elene is on the side of right, whereas the Jews, cursed for rejecting Christ, deserve humiliation and punishment.
An unsympathetic approach to Elene, however, misunderstands both the Christian background of the poem and its development of characters as types. The figure of Judas, particularly, needs careful attention. The poem introduces him after Elene asks to see the wisest among the Jews. Groups of three thousand, then one thousand, and finally five hundred wise men are rejected by Elene before Judas, “the one skilled in speeches,” reducing the number of the righteous to Lot and his family. Judas shares features with Lot, for like him, he has ancient parentage and familial ties to the righteous, yet represents a doomed people. He knows the truth of Christianity from his father; furthermore, his brother was Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He refuses, however, to accept what he knows. Like his namesake, Judas Iscariot, the most despised Jew in Christian history, he rejects Christ until driven to admit the truth by Elene. Then his role is reversed, a point emphasized by the demon who appears in the poem to complain of Christian interference in the designs of evil. This new Judas—like Christ, the new Adam—provides the way to salvation through the cross. By converting to Christianity and using his wisdom to discover the cross, Judas Cyriacus saves not only himself, but also the Jewish people, whom medieval Christians believed would ultimately be converted to Christianity.
Other characters in Elene are similarly given typological significance. Constantine is associated with Christ and Elene with ecclesia, the victorious Christian Church. The confrontation between Judas and Elene thus symbolizes a standard doctrinal topic of Christian apologetic and polemical literature: the confrontation between synagoga and ecclasia, the law of Judaism and the grace of Christ. The confrontation is settled by the elevation of the cross, the visible token of Christ’s redemptive act and a disastrous defeat for the devil.
Like the missionary activities of the apostles and the martyrdom of the saints, however, this confrontation is only one of a series of battles in the larger war between good and evil. It remains for the individual to take sides in the war, to join forces with ecclasia, as Cynewulf emphasizes in his conclusion. In a passage developing internal rhymes, he relates his own conversion from sin to the cross. The poet takes the past event and gives it personal application, for his own conversion associates him with the three conversions of the narrative. Then, after weaving his name in runes into a meditation on the mutability of this world, Cynewulf describes doomsday and the respective rewards of the righteous and evil. This concluding radical perspective explains the militancy of the Christian emperor, the conversion of the Jews, and the poet’s own dedication to the cross.
Christ II
Unlike Cynewulf’s other poems, Christ II deals not with Christian saints but with a key event in the life of Christ, the Ascension. Rather than drawing from legendary sources, it closely parallels the last part of Pope Gregory’s homily on the Ascension (homily 29), with some additions based on Saint Bede’s On the Lord’s Ascension (c. 700) and monastic readings for Ascensiontide. Although Claes Schaar believed that in Christ II “the poet is some-what overwhelmed by the rhetoric of Gregory,” others have praised Cynewulf’s “masterful reworking” of the homily. Daniel Calder, comparing Cynewulf’s treatment of Gregory to Gregory’s treatment of the Bible, notes that the poet “takes liberties with Gregory’s text” to arrive at the truth concerning the Ascension, sometimes expanding, other times rearranging, his Latin source.
The result is an imaginative exposition of the significance of the Ascension combining Christian allegory and exegesis with Germanic poetic techniques. The description of Christ’s six leaps in his role as humankind’s savior, from incarnation to Ascension, allegorically develops the exegesis of the Song of Solomon and establishes the Ascension as the final necessary step in the long process of humankind’s salvation. Christ, “the famous Prince,” leaves his band of retainers on earth (the disciples) and goes to join the band of angels in Heaven. The disciples, like the wanderers of Old English elegiac poetry, are overwhelmed by the loss of their leader, whereas the angels raise a song of joy and triumph. However, the apostles are not left helpless, for Christ bestows gifts on humankind, including not only the spiritual gifts of wisdom, poetry, and teaching, but also the physical gifts of victory in battle and seafaring.
Even the description of Christ’s glorious Ascension, however, is understood in the context of the cosmic battle between good and evil. Christ is welcomed to Heaven by a song praising his harrowing of Hell, his victory against the “ancient foes.” In another passage experimenting with internal rhyme, Cynewulf establishes the significance of Christ’s act, which makes possible humankind’s choice between salvation and damnation. The passage, reflecting the poet’s pronounced dualism, contrasts Heaven and Hell, light and dark, majesty and doom, glory and torment.
Later, Cynewulf relates Christ’s six redemptive leaps to humankind’s need to leap by holy deeds to the rewards of Heaven. The Father of Heaven will help humankind overcome sin and will protect the faithful against the attacks of fiends in the cosmic battle. The importance of such reliance on Christ is underscored in the poem’s conclusion, Cynewulf’s elaborate treatment of doomsday. Introduced by his own confession of sin and fear of judgment, it includes the runic signature woven into the description of terror facing the worldly humans before the almighty judge.
Thus, as in The Fates of the Apostles, Juliana, and Elene, Cynewulf in Christ II ties the events of Christian history, developed from his Latin sources, to his contemporary world through personal confession. The poems all teach a basic concept underlying the Christian liturgy and its understanding of sacred time: the close relationship between the past, present, and future. The victories of the past in the struggle between good and evil symbolized by the ministry of Christ and the lives of the saints must be repeated in the present by the individual Christian, for in the future all people will face the judgment of God.
