SOURCE: Charles W. Kennedy, "Introduction," in The Poems of Cynewulf, Peter Smith, 1949, pp. 1-42.

In the essay that follows, Kennedy reviews what is known about Cynewulfs identity and the four poems signed with his name and suggests that the scholastic religious tradition which directs the primary content of Cynewulfs poetry is interlaced with more "romantic" overtones.

Of the many problems arising from a study of Anglo-Saxon literature few are more confusing and baffling than those which connect themselves with the poems confidently or tentatively ascribed to Cynewulf. Of no one genius in the entire range of English literature do we know at once so little and so much. For when stripped of conjecture, surmise, and academic theory, our actual knowledge of Cynewulf, of his circumstances and life, is small. He is the merest shadow of a name given us in eight Anglo-Saxon runic letters. Scholars have had their...