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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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CYNEWULF (fl.? AD 800 - 825) Cynewulf is the only Old English poet known by name of whom any undisputed writings are extant (rather than being quoted by others). Though details of his life are lacking, Cynewulf was probably a Northumbrian churchman born in the 8th century. Unlike Caedmon of Whitby, the first known Christian poet, Cynewulf seems to have been a man of education, familiar with the Latin liturgy and literature of the church of his day. He wrote skilled and felicitous alliterative verse in the Northern dialect of Old English. At one time or another, almost all the great Anglo-Saxon poems, including the noblest of all 'The Dream of the Rood' and the celebrated Riddles in the Exeter Book have been attributed to Cynewulf, but only four are certainly his. These are 'Elene' and 'The Fates of the Apostles' in the Vercelli Book, and 'The Ascension' and 'Juliana' in the Exeter Book . In all of these, Cynewulf's runic 'signature' is interwoven with the verse. The finest of these is thought to be 'Elene', which describes the finding of the true cross by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great.
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