CYNEWULF AND HIS POETRY

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21034, 9 December 1933, Page 17

CYNEWULF AND HIS POETRY

dr. SISAM'S lecture (srKCIALIA' WRITTEN' FOR THE PKESS.) jCy PROFESSOR ARNOLD WALL.] The Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture of the British Academy, on Cvnewulf and his Poetry, was delivered this year by Dr. Kenneth Sisam, a very well-known scholar, secretary of the Clarendon Press, and a distinguished graduate of the University College of Auckland. The choice a." the subject is happy, not only because of its intrinsic interest, but also because the late Sir Israel Gollancz was devoted to the ctudy of alliterative verse, both of ihe Anglo-Saxon and the Middle English Schools, and especially to ihe work of Cvnewulf, whose "Christ" he edited with a translation in 1892; this was followed in 1893 by his edition and translation of the first part of the "Exeter Book," which includes "St. Juliana" by the same poet. The subject has E n additional attraction in that, as Dr. Sisam says, "there has been no recent attempt in England to survey its controversies," and there has been far more discussion, theorising, and controversy about Cynewulf than about any other Old English writer, whether of prose or verse. Cynewulf Problems. Though Cynewulf is the first English poet whose name we know—if we except the five lines of Bede's "Death Song," and the eight lines of Caedmon, which Bede quotes in his account —all that we know of him for certain is that he "signed his name" (in variant spellings) to his long poem on "St. Juliana," to his poem on "The Finding of the Cross" by St. Helena, and to two other pieces which are preserved in the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book. All attempts to identify him with any historical personage of the name, ■which is not uncommon, have hith.erto failed. External evidence about him is entirely lacking. From internal evidence we may make conjectures as to the date at which he wrote, and as to the part of England in which he lived; and. less legitimately, as to his personal character. There is an old story of a young pupil-teacher who was asked a certain question in examination, and replied: "The Scriptures are silent on this point, for full particulars see Farrar's Life of Christ." Even so, Stopford Brooke gave a quite circumstantial and wholly imaginary description of Cynewulf the man, relying solely on the expressions of penitence and unworthiness which (conventionally enough) accompany the "signatures." With regard to the first point—his date—about which we may usefully enquire, it has been maintained by different critics that he lived in the eighth, ninth, and even the tenth century, the one thing certain being that his poems are later than Beowulf and the paraphrases of Caedmon. From the dialectal characters we can tell that the poems, though they have come down to us in West Saxon transcripts, were originally composed in "Anglican" dialect, which means either Northumbrian or Mercian, for they bear vestigial traces, clear and unmistakable, of the older forms. And as we have no knowledge of any Northumbrian or Mercian school of poetry in or after King Alfred's time, the inference is obvious. After .i full review of all the evidence Dr. Sisam concludes that he belongs to the ninth century. As to the local habitation of Cynewulf, the choice lying between the North and the Midlands (Mercia), the chief evidence is the spelling of the name, and that reduces itself to the evidence of the fourth letter, whether e or i, and v/hether absent, as in two of the signatures. Much research was devoted to this fine point by the German scholar Sievers, and after a critical review of his results and of subsequent investigations, Dr. Sisam concludes that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of Mercia. Further problems arise when we attempt to decide upon the canon of Cynewulf's work—what exactly he did or did not write among the poems which have been attributed to him. There is no doubt about "St. Juliana" or "Elene," but it is a question whether the poem called "The Fates of the Apostles," which he signed, is or is not an epilogue to the great poem of "Andreas," which it follows in the Vercelli Book, and if it is such an epilogue, then "Andreas" as a whole must be ascribed to him. Dr. Sisam thinks it must not. Finally it is a question whether Cynewulf wrote the whole of "Christ," or only that part, "The Ascension," to which his signature is attached. Upon this point Dr. Sisam decides that Cynewulf did not write the part which is called Judgment Day," but he keeps an open mind on the question of "The ■Advent." Thus Cynewulf is left a certain output of 2600 lines— Juliana," "Elene," "Fates of the Apostles," and "The Ascension," and it is remarkable that none of these deals directly with a Biblical subject like the poems of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, and the lost Works of Caedmon. As Dr. Sisam s j>ys, his themes "belong to a later ®«£e, when the foundations are ■laid, and the demand is for works °f devotional interest: for legends of saints and special expositions." jus three long poems are martyroJ °gical, and "all Cynewulf's signed Poems are associated with and exPlain special occasions in the Church c «endar."

The Signatures. It would be difficult to describe wy; one of Cynewulf's signatures and briefly, and they are not alike. We will take that t , Juli . ana " as an example. Down o nis time and probably a century syond it, however late we date Englishmen were still familiar with the old Runic symbols both by ame and appearance, and it was y means of them that Cynewulf 'gned himself. Eight were required \though he could do it with seven), n the "Juliana" case he merely Waced one of these symbols, or a sToup of them, where his own peronal name, or the pronoun, would presenting them in due order. ihis signature, like all the others, 2 ass ociated with the Day of Judgment. it runs thus: "My soul shall BO iorth from the body on its jour- * know n °t whither, to what unknown land. I must go hence see k another place according to ™y deeds in the past. Sadly will Journey Cen, Yr, and Ned; the King Heaven will be stern when Eoh, •Wyn, and Ur, sin-stained and tremWing, await what will be adjudged

to them according to their deeds, as the earning 0 f iffe on earth. Lagu eo " shall stand and quake in misery, etc." (the translation is Sisams). As five of the eight names required were in common use as nouns, in some cases he could merely work them into his text in their ordinary meaning, e.g., eoh, horse; wyn, pleasure. The connexion with the Great Judgment shows what is Cynewulf's f 1 ™ recording his authorship. Unlike a modern poet, he does not seek fame or money, and he has no message of his own to deliver. All he wants is that at the great day and on all occasions he shall be remembered by name in the prayers of others. He says so himself, both in "Juliana" and in "The Fates of the Apostles," and in this desire he only resembled the other poets (including the Latin poets) of his age. His poems were meant to be recited rather than read, and the sudden introduction of the familiar Runic words, or names, served first to arouse the attention of the pious listener, and then to impress upon him the name to be kept in mind. Such signatures are not uncommon in contemporary Latin Christian poetry, usually in the form of acrostics, which are plain to a reader, but might not be so to a listener. Seen in this light, as they are presented by Dr. Sisam, the Runic signatures seem quite natural and reasonable, and much of the fog that seemed to surround them has vanished. Finally, it was usual for the poet to express in such passages a lively fear for the fate of his soul, and to speak of himself as a miserable sinner who hoped for the help of others' prayers, and there is no need to assume, as Stopford Brooke did, that Cynewulf had been exceptionally wicked or worldly in his youth. Cynewulf's Poetry. The poetic style of Cynewulf is tvpical of the "Secondary" poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. The "Primary" poetry is pagan, ancient, unfortunately only known to us by short poems and fragments, and distinguished by the exquisite beauty of certain passages which strike a note of lyrical passion rarely excelled in any English writings until modern times. All this early poetry is the work of gleemen, or minstrels, professional itinerant entertainers, and no author's name comes down to us with any of them. The "Secondary" poetry is the composition of ecclesiastics like Cynewulf. This writer achieved a sort of personal style marked by very great elegance and grace, and he excelled in the Qualities which belong to that Latin Christian poetry which he emulated. All his poetry is, of course, composed in that alliterative, accentual metre which was the common property of all the old Teutonic nations j— a metre whose greatness has rarely been fully appreciated. Coventry Patmore recognised it as "one of the most scientifically perfect metres ever invented, if, indeed, it be not perfect beyond all others, when considered with reference to the language for which it was destined. Cynewulf handled this metre with ease and consummate skill, especially when describing a sea voyage, or a battle, or the joys of Paradise, or the terrors of the Great Judgment. He was the master of a certain delicate music of his own; he achieved his best effects by the use of the musical alliterations of w, 1, an d r—effects not unlike Swinburne's much-admired "Welling water's winsome word, Winds in warm wan weather." He was not a mere slavish imitator of the Latin, content to give a close paraphrase of his original, and he instinctively knew when the narrative offered him an opportunity for the display of the wealth and glory of the old poetic pagan vocabulary. He will give three separate descriptions of the terrors of the Judgment, not far apart, without repeating himself. We cannot help regretting the complete loss of this grand old metre which is now only used occasionally by the Icelanders, yet it never really lost its influence upon English verse. Though rhyme took the place of alliteration and a system of syllabic" lines—with a fixed number ot syllables—supplanted the freer accentual mode; and though this form seems to dominate our metrical habit in all.serious verse from Chaucer to Tennyson, yet there is perceptible all along a certain tendency to rebel against the eternal iambic beat tor example, seen m the ballad and allied species, and in the licenses which the greatest exponents of our greatest metre, blank verse, always permitted themselves. And, within living memory, the established tyranny was broken and the best poets of the last 40 years have returned, quite instinctively, unconsciously, and naturally, to a purely accentual system which altogether defies any attempt at division into the "feet" of prosody And in doing this they have come back into line with the AngloSaxons and reasserted the inalienable riPht of Englishmen to a freedom and flexibility of expression unknown to classical and romance verse. Modern Study of Cynewulf. When we contemplate the great mass of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the hauntingly beautiful pagan lyrics, the substantial epic of Beowulf, and the rich store of beautiful Christian verse, we think it only right and fitting that every student of English who aspires to high university honours should have a fairly wide knowledge of these early masterpieces of our long literary history; and indeed all modern British and American universities demand it of such aspirants, with a very few dishonourable exceptions. Yet poor Cynewulf, who only wished to be remembered by name in his readers (or listeners') prayers, too often only earns their curse. The study of Anglo-Saxon in its early stages is undoubtedly difficult and "dry," and a* it is usually begun m the umversitv classes where the stern methods of school discipline are not available the average student tends to be uninterested and discouraged, refuses to learn the language thoroughly, as he has to learn Latin i or Greek at school, and flounders along, guessing and blundering, so that his whole voyage "is bound in shallows and in miseries." Then, of course, if he is to understand the language thoroughly he must devote attention not only to an unfamiliar and rather elaborate grammar but also to sound laws and phonology, •subjects which to many minds are merely repellent. Yet these subjects are strictly limited, their difficulties are easily overcome by determined I effort, and the reward at the end is truly great. , Hitherto the University of New Zealand, like the provincial universities of Great Britain, has offered its students a liberal syllabus m this respect, but there are not wanting signs that this state of affairs may not continue long. If we judge, for example, by the utterances reported from the last meeting of the Uni- j versity Senate, when not only a want of sympathy with Anglo-Saxon ]

studies but a determined hostility to them was expressed, we should be justified in feeling very doubtful about the future. These were the utterances, of course, of men who are ignorant of the subject, and imagine all Anglo-Saxon study is "philology," yet they are the men in power, and undoubtedly any move to reduce the Anglo-Saxon prescription for honours in English would be popular. It is to be devoutly hoped, in the interests of sound English scholarship in New Zealand, and of the standing of the New Zealand University in the sight of the scholastic world, that these champions of a reactionary cause will never get their way. In conclusion, Dr. Sisam must be congratulated on the skill and scholarly insight which he has brought to his task, by the successful perform-1 ance of which he has laid all students of English literature under a I great obligation. _ j