SOURCE: "Poems Attributed to Cynewulf or His School," in English Literature: From the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, 1898. Reprint by Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1921, pp. 180-202.

Brooke was an Anglo-Irish clergyman, poet, critic, and educator whose Primer of English Literature (1876) was popular with generations of students. In the excerpt below, he contends that Cynewulf, who is often credited as the author of The Dream of the Rood, wrote the epic poem as "his farewell to earth."

TheDream of the Rood is in the Vercelli Book. There is great discussion concerning its authorship. A large number of critics allot it to Cynewulf, but they lessen the weight of their opinion by giving other poems to Cynewulf which have nothing in them of the artist. Ten Brink and Zupitza both maintained against Wülker the authorship of Cynewulf. No assertion can be made at present on the subject. It...