<i>Hwa þas fitte fegde</i>? Questioning Cynewulf's Claim of Authorship

Puskar, Jason

doi:10.1080/0013838x.2010.536683

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…2 The orthodox contention is that the Andreas poet was more likely the borrower (Krapp 1906;Orchard 2003;Schaar 1967), but the opposite direction of influence has nevertheless also been proposed. Puskar (2011) emphasizes discordant notions of authorship and argues that the manuscript evidence points toward the scribe of the Vercelli Book perceiving Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles as a single work. Puskar further speculates that Cynewulf might not have functioned as the original poet in a modern sense, but could very well have compiled, rearranged, combined, and added to texts already in existence as part of the creative process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Unseen Eighth Rune: Runic Legacy and Multiliteral Performativity in Cynewulf’s The Fates of the Apostles

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2021

Humanities

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The four Old English poems containing the runic Cyn(e)wulf ‘signature’ have continuously provoked debate as to the characters’ intratextual function and proper interpretation. While the prevailing view is that they are predominantly logogrammatic instantiations of traditional runic names, a case has nevertheless also been made for alternative words indicated by initialisms. Referencing both of these lines of reasoning in conjunction with a semiotic literary methodological stance, this article evaluates a single Cynewulf poem (The Fates of the Apostles) and its particular inclusion of runes amongst the bookhand alphabet characters. The assessment demonstrates the poem’s multiliteral destabilization of associative boundaries between different scripts, as well as between perceived boundaries of orality and legibility. In doing so, it identifies in the text an unseen ‘eighth rune’ that is semiotically operative.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Unseen Eighth Rune: Runic Legacy and Multiliteral Performativity in Cynewulf’s The Fates of the Apostles

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2021

Humanities

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Cynewulf

Birkett

2017

The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain

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Cynewulf is the only named Anglo‐Saxon poet associated with a body of Old English verse. The runic signature Cyn(e)wulf is appended to four surviving Old English poems; The Fates of the Apostles and Elene in the Vercelli Book and Christ II and Juliana in the Exeter Book, whilst the unsigned poem Guthlac B is sometimes attributed to the same poet on stylistic grounds. As a group of authored poems within a largely anonymous tradition, the Cynewulf canon is of great importance for discussions of individual poetic style. However, the biography of this named individual is obscure: all our information about him as a poet comes from the internal evidence of the four colophons, and the reason for the signing of these Old English poems is still the subject of much debate.

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