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Cynewulf's Christ 1665-1693

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edwin J. Howard
Edwin J. Howard*
Affiliation:
Beloit College
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Extract

The authorship of the twenty-nine lines following line 1664 of Cynewulf's Christ in the Exeter Book is, in common with that of much Old English poetry, disputed. The lines are variously considered an independent poem, the conclusion of Christ, and the beginning of Guthlac. Since external evidence is, of course, entirely lacking, an effort will here be made to decide the authorship by means of internal evidence.

The thought contained in Christ IV, as the disputed lines 1665–93 will for convenience be designated in this article, is much closer to that of the concluding passage of Christ III than it is to the beginning of Guthlac. Thomas Arnold has said that the line of thought of IV agrees in no way with that which marks the opening of Guthlac, while Gollancz, who insists that IV is a prelude to Guthlac, finds it necessary to say that the ‘motives’ of IV are ‘derived from the concluding portion of the Christ.’

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1930 , pp. 354 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930

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References

1 The numbering of lines and division into parts are according to Albert S. Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf, Boston, 1900.

2 See Cook, op. cit., p. 225, for a summary of the main views.

3 Notes on Beowulf, Lond. and N. Y., 1898, p. 122.

4 Cynewulf's Christ, London, 1892, p. 191.

5 Carleton F. Brown, “Cynewulf and Alcuin,” PMLA, XVIII (1903), 308-34.

6 Ibid., p. 309.

7 P. J. Cosijn, ‘Anglosaxonica IV’, P.B.B., XXIII (1898), 115.

8 See Adams, below.

* The bold-face letters are used to represent the Runic characters in the original.

9 Besides the two quoted, see also Christ 804 ff. and Juliana 695 ff.

10 C. F. Brown, “The Autobiographical Element in the Cynewulfian Rune Passages,” Engl. Stud., XXXVIII (1907), 216-18.

11 Franz Schwarz, Cynewulfs Anteil am Christ, Eine Metrische Untersuchung, (Königsberg Dissertation) Königsberg, 1905, p. 95.

12 Ibid., p. 64.

13 E. Sievers, “Zur Rhythmik des Germanischen Alliterations verses: III. Der Angelsächsische Schwellvers', P.B.B., XII (1887), p. 461, 3a.

14 Ibid., p. 470.

15 “Christ (?) 1665-93,” M.L.N., XXXI (1916), p. 240.

16 Sievers, op. cit., pp. 471, 472.

17 Schwarz, op. cit., p. 96.

18 Ibid., 85 ff.

19 Ibid., p. 81.

20 Otto Jesperson, Growth and Structure of the English Language, 4th ed., N. Y., 1923, p. 55.

21 Cook, op. cit., pp. xxi-xxv.

22 Ibid., pp. xlvi-li.

23 Schwarz, op. cit.

24 Gustav Binz, Untersuchung zum Altenglischen Sogenannten Christ: Festschrift zur 49ten Versammlung Deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner, Basel, 1907, pp. 181-197.

25 Gordon Hall Gerould, “Studies in the Christ,” Engl. Stud., XLI (1909-10), 12.

26 Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., “The Cynewulfian Question from a Metrical Point of View,” M.L.N., VII (1892), 192-212.

27 Sievers, op. cit., p. 456.

28 Engl. Stud., XLV (1912), 96.

29 Moritz Trautmann, Kynewulf der Bischof und Dichter, Bonn, 1893, p. 122.

30 George Arnold Smithson, The Old English Christian Epic, (Univ. of Calif. Pubs. in Modern Philol. I), 1910, p. 325.

31 To this paragraph Smithson appends the footnote: “I am not attempting to prove that the poem does not show traces of different hands. Differences in style may be due to copyists. The general unity of tone is manifest.” (p. 325).