Cynewulf [key], fl. early 9th cent.?, Old English religious poet of Northumbria or Mercia. Four poems have been ascribed to him on the evidence of his signatures in runes in the text of each of these poems. The poems, all more explicitly didactic than any earlier works, are: Juliana, The Ascension, Elene, and The Fates of the Apostles. Other poems, formerly thought his, are now attributed to poets of the “Cynewulf school.”
See The Poems of Cynewulf (tr. by C. W. Kennedy, 1949); E. R. Anderson, Cynewulf: Structure, Style, and Theme in His Poetry (1983).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: English Literature to 1499: Biographies
