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Page 6
IV. The BYRHTNOTH, or Fight at Maldon, relates in vigorous verse the
contest between the Saxons, led by the Ealdorman Byrhtnoth, and the
Danes at the river Panta, near Maldon in Essex, in which the Danes were
victorious and Byrhtnoth was slain. The incident is mentioned in four
manuscripts of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" under the year 991, but one
gives it under 993. The MS. in which the poem was contained was
unfortunately burnt in the great fire above-mentioned (1731); but Thomas
Hearne, the antiquary, had fortunately printed it, as prose, in his
edition, of the Chronicle of John of Glastonbury (1726); hence this is
now our sole authority for the text, which is defective at both the
beginning and the end. The poem has been highly esteemed by scholars,
and is a very valuable relic of late tenth century literature. It has
been often reprinted, and translated several times in whole or in part.
Grein does not translate either the ATHELSTAN or the BYRHTNOTH. K�rner
translates it in full, and so does Zernial in his Program "Das Lied von
Byrhtnoth's Fall" (1882). This monograph contains the fullest study of
the poem that has been made. It is translated into English, with some
omissions, by Kennedy in ten Brink (pp. 93-96); it is barely mentioned
by Earle (p. 147), and a summary of it is given by Morley in "English
Writers" (II. 319-320). A Bibliography will be found in W�lker's
_Grundriss_ (pp. 344-5). An edition of both ATHELSTAN and BYRHTNOTH has
been long announced in the "Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," but it has
not yet appeared.[1] Sweet says of the BYRHTNOTH (Reader, p. 138):
"Although the poem does not show the high technical finish of the older
works, it is full of dramatic power and warm feeling"; and ten Brink,
with more enthusiasm, calls it (p. 96) "one of the pearls of Old English
poetry, full, as it is, of dramatic life, and fidelity of an
eye-witness. Its deep feeling throbs in the clear and powerful
portrayal." He recognizes, however, "the tokens of metrical decline, of
the dissolution of ancient art-forms."
[1] Crow's "Maldon and Brunnanburh," 1897.
V. The DREAM OF THE ROOD is found in the Vercelli manuscript. W�lker's
_Grundriss_ gives the literature of the subject to the time of its
publication (1885). Soon afterwards Morley's "English Writers," Vol.
II., appeared (1888), in which an English translation is given (pp.
237-241); also Stopford Brooke, in his "History of Early English
Literature" (1892), has given an account of the poem, with partial
translation and epitome (pp. 436-443). (See also p. 337 and pp. 384-386
for further notice.) The poem is very briefly mentioned by Trautmann in
his monograph on Cynewulf (1898, p. 40). There are some very interesting
questions connected with the poem which cannot be discussed here. Was it
by Cynewulf? On the affirmative side we find Dietrich, Rieger, Grein,
ten Brink, D'Ham, and Sweet. On the negative, W�lker, Ebert, Trautmann,
Stephens, Morley, Brooke, and others. Pacius, who edited the text, with
a German translation, in 1873, thinks that we know nothing about the
poet. Brooke has propounded a theory, previously adumbrated by the
editors of the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, Vigfusson and Powell, that an
older poem, possibly of C�dmonian origin, as shown by the long
six-accent lines, has been worked over by Cynewulf, with additions, and
that it is "his last work" (p. 440). Certain lines of the poem, in the
Northumbrian dialect, are found on the Ruthwell Cross, which fact
complicates the question of origin. These are compared by Brooke (p.
337). The other upholders of the Cynewulfian authorship think that this
Dream, occurring in the early part of Cynewulf's religious life, led to
the longer and more highly finished poem, the ELENE, written near the
close of his life. The questions of the relationship of the poem to the
Ruthwell Cross and to the ELENE deserve further discussion. With these
is connected the question of date, and the poem has been placed all the
way from 700 to 800 A.D., even a little before and a little after,
possibly 675 to 825 A.D., so as yet there is no common agreement. The
similarity of thought in the personal epilogue (II. 122 ff.) to the
epilogue of the ELENE (II. 1237 ff.) is striking, and they may be
compared by the curious reader. The translation is made from the
Grein-W�lker text (Vol. II., pp. 116-125), with emendations from others,
as seen in the notes. All can agree with Kemble (_Codex Vercellensis_,
Part II., p. ix) that "it is in some respects the most striking of all
the Anglo-Saxon remains, inasmuch as a departure from the mere
conventional style of such compositions is very perceptible in it. It
contains some passages of real poetical beauty, and a good deal of
fancy." Brooke says (op. cit., p. 443): "This is the last of the
important poems of the eighth century. It is good, but not very good.
The older part, if my conjecture be right, is the best, and its
reworking by Cynewulf has so broken it up that its dignity is much
damaged. The shaping is rude, but the imagination has indeed shaped
it." ten Brink says (p. 53): "Cynewulf himself has immortalized this
vision in a poem, giving utterance to an irrepressible emotion, but
still exhibiting the delicate lines of a beautifully designed
composition." The other Germans are usually so taken up with technical
and mechanical questions that they leave no room for �sthetic
considerations. Whether Cynewulf wrote the poem or not,--and the
probabilities favor his authorship, though we may not hesitate to say
with Morley, "I don't know,"--it is certainly the work of a gifted
Christian poet, who reverences the cross as the means of the redemption
of mankind.
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