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The First Riddle of Cynewulf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William Witherle Lawrence
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Extract

There are few questions concerning Anglo-Saxon literature which have been more widely discussed than the interpretation of the so-called First Riddle of Cynewulf. The subject was introduced by Heinrich Leo in 1857, in his celebrated monograph Quae de se ipso Cynewulfus Poeta Anglosaxonicus tradiderit. Before that time the line shad attracted little attention. As is well known, they occur in the Exeter Book, the collection of verse left by Bishop Leofric to his cathedral church in the eleventh century. Thorpe, in his edition of this manuscript, did not venture to translate them, which is scarcely to be wondered at, since both language and grammatical construction are unusually obscure. The investigations of Leo, however, with those of his followers and opponents, at once gave great interest and importance to the almost unnoticed lines. It may be well to mention briefly the principal theories which have been founded on this bit of verse, some of which rival in ingenuity the familiar attempts to establish a Baconian cypher in the works of Shakespeare.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , 1902 , pp. 247 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1902

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References

Note 1 in page 247 For a more detailed review of these theories, and a bibliography, see Professor Cook's edition of Cynewulf's Christ, The Albion Series, Boston, 1900, pp. lii ff.

Note 1 in page 248 For Dietrich's views, see Haupt's Zs., xi, 448 ff., and cf. xii, 232 ff.; Lit. Centralbl., March 28, 1858, p. 191; Jahrb. f. rom. u. eng. Lit., i, 241.

Note 2 in page 248 Cf. Cook, p. lvi.

Note 3 in page 248 Zs. f. d. Phil., i, 215 ff.

Note 4 in page 248 Anglia, Anz. 6, 158–169.

Note 5 in page 248 Anglia, vii, Anz. 120 ff.

Note 6 in page 248 Das Altenglische Gedicht vom Heiligen Andreas, pp. 2, 23.

Note 7 in page 248 Anglia, x, 390 ff.

Note 8 in page 248 Ibid., 564 ff.

Note 1 in page 249 Die Rätsel des Exeterbuches, pp. 64 ff.

Note 2 in page 249 Literaturbl., 1891, No. 5, p. 157.

Note 3 in page 249 Christ, p. lix.

Note 4 in page 249 Academy, 44, p. 572.

Note 5 in page 249 Eng. Lit. from the Beg. to the Norman Conquest, 1898, p. 160.

Note 6 in page 249 Anglia, xiii, 19–21.

Note 1 in page 251 Cf. Bülbring, loc. cit.

Note 1 in page 252 Anylia, x, 567.

Note 2 in page 252 Altgerm. Metrik, § 98, p. 145.

Note 1 in page 253 The italics are mine.

Note 1 in page 254 Bugge-Schofield, Home of the Eddic Poems, Introd., p. xvi.

Note 2 in page 254 G II (Sijmons-Gering, Aelt. Edda, i, 395 ff.).

Note 3 in page 254 Cf. Meyer, Stil der Altg. Poesie, pp. 340 ff.

Note 4 in page 254 Grundriss, § 327, p. 334.

Note 5 in page 254 Sijmons-Gering, Aelt. Edda, i, 413 ff.

Note 1 in page 255 Deutsche Heldensage, No. 8.

Note 2 in page 255 Grundriss, § 327.

Note 3 in page 255 Illustrations, p. 244.

Note 4 in page 255 Altg. Metrik, § 97.

Note 1 in page 256 Ed. Copenhagen, 1826, ii, 98.

Note 2 in page 256 It is of course difficult to state with certainty that a given word or phrase does not occur elsewhere. Such a statement should be taken to mean that a search through the lexicons has failed to reveal other references.—Compare also the rare seldcymas in line 14 with its Norse relative sjaldkvæmr, and meteliste in line 15 with the Norse matleysa.

Note 3 in page 256 Cf. Cleasby-Vigfusson, under .

Note 4 in page 256 Sijmons-Gering, Edda, i, 293 ff.

Note 5 in page 256 Glossar zu den Ludern der Edda, 2nd ed., 1896.

Note 1 in page 257 Elsewhere as īg-buend, īg-land, and as the last half of compound proper names like Meres-īg.

Note 2 in page 257 Ed. Christiania, 1848, 42, 7.

Note 3 in page 257 Konunga Sogur of Snorri, Cap. xi.

Note 1 in page 258 Cf. Sievers, Ags. Gram., § 300, Anm.

Note 2 in page 258 In regard to faulty alliteration compare the following paragraph, and also Herzfeld, loc. cit. p. 67.

Note 1 in page 259 History of Eng. Lit., i, 378.

Note 1 in page 261 Anglia, xiii, 19.