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The Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon Formulaic Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Larry D. Benson
Larry D. Benson*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
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Extract

Perhaps the most fruitful and exciting development in Old English studies in recent years has followed from F. P. Magoun's discovery that the Parry-Lord theory of oral verse-making can be applied to Old English poetry. This theory has caught the imagination of critics and has produced a “kind of revolution in scholarly opinion” not simply because it shows us that the style of this poetry is traditional—that has been known for many years—but because it offers a new and useful way of approaching the problems raised by this style, because it provides a new way of considering some of the relations between these poems, and because it casts light on an area that we thought was forever darkened, the pre-literary history of Germanic and Old English verse.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , October 1966 , pp. 334 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1966

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Footnotes

*

This paper was read to the English 1 Discussion Group (Old English) at the MLA meeting in New York on 27 December 1964. I owe thanks to the chairman of that group, Professor Rowland L. Collins of Indiana University, to Professor Kemp Malone of The Johns Hopkins University, and to Professor William Alfred of Harvard for encouragement and suggestions. Though he does not agree with my argument, Professor Robert P. Creed of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, kindly offered suggestions that saved me from a number of blunders.

References

1 F. P. Magoun, Jr, “The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry,” Speculum, xxviii (1953), 446–467; rept. in Lewis E. Nicholson, ed., An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism (Notre Dame, Ind., 1963), pp. 189–221, from which the quotations in the text below are taken. Since Magoun's article appeared, Albert B. Lord's The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass., 1960) has been published, so perhaps now, as William Whallon suggested to me, we should speak simply of the “Lord theory”; certainly I have depended heavily on Lord's work for a definition of oral verse.

2 Robert E. Diamond, The Diction of the Anglo-Saxon Metrical Psalms (The Hague, 1963), pp. 5–6, provides a convenient bibliographical summary of formulaic and thematic studies.

3 William Whallon, “The Diction of Beowulf,” PMLA, lxxvi (1961), 317; F. P. Magoun, Jr, “Béowulf B: A Folk Poem on Beowulf's Death,” in Arthur Brown and Peter Foote, eds., Early English and Norse Studies Presented to Hugh Smith (London, 1963), p. 128.

4 By “lettered tradition” I mean a tradition consisting of poems written by scribes for an audience of readers, poems which thereby have a fixed text that is transmitted to an audience by reading (probably aloud). Leaving aside for the moment the problem of their composition, it is clear that all surviving Old English poems had this mode of existence once they were committed to writing. Such written poetry may have existed alongside oral verse, since Asser tells us that King Alfred delighted in hearing poems as a boy and when an adult set his children to studying Saxon books, “especially Saxon poems.” Asser's authority may be doubted, but even if he be a “pseudo-Asser” writing in the late tenth century he provides testimony on attitudes toward Anglo-Saxon poetry at the time most of our surviving manuscripts were written. He tells us (De Rebus Gesti Ælfredi, ed. W. H. Stevenson, Oxford, 1904, c. xxiii) that young Alfred once earned a book of Old English poetry by memorizing it when he read it over to his teacher (in the previous paragraph Asser remarked that Alfred remained “illiteratus” throughout his youth, but evidently he meant that the boy was ignorant of Latin letters). The poems to which Alfred listened in his father's court may have been oral, and that experience may have helped to develop his memory, but this episode shows him operating on the same assumptions about poetry as would be held by a schoolboy of today: the poem has a single text, fixed and recorded in a book; one learns the text by reading it aloud to his teacher, and then one recites what he has learned—“quo lecto, matri retulit et recitavit.” By “lettered tradition” I also mean poems composed in writing, the sort of poems that Alfred himself may have written if he was the author of the metrical preface to the Pastoral Care, discussed in the text below; as will appear later in my essay, I hold that most of our surviving poems were composed in writing. On the difficulty of recording oral texts, see Lord, The Singer of Tales, pp. 125–127.

5 The Singer of Tales, p. 129.

6 Magoun, “The Oral Formulaic Character,” p. 190. This position has gained currency because of the widespread assumption that there are only two kinds of composition, the traditional, oral way on the one hand, and the modern way with its emphasis on “originality” on the other. But a poet can be traditional even in diction and phrasing without being oral, and some literary periods prefer tradition to “originality.” The Anglo-Saxon period seems to have been such an age. This is apparent not only in the English verse but in the Latin poetry of the time. Aldhelm, for example, begins his Carmen de Virginitate with “Omnipotens genitor mundum dicione gubernans, / Lucida stelligeri qui condis culmina caeli” (Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Rudolphus Ehwald, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctorum Antiquissimorum Tomus XV, Berlin, Editio Nova, 1961, p. 352). As Ehwald's notes show, the first line has parallels in the poems of Virgil, Sedulius Aethilwulf, Angilbertus, and Alcuin, as well as in Aldhelm's other works, and the second line has parallels in the works of Sedulius Scottus, of Aethilwald, and in later parts of the de Virginitate itself.

7 Magoun, “The Oral-Formulaic Character,” p. 212. Kenneth Sisam, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1962), p. 25, suggests how listeners could have understood Cynewulf's “signatures.”

8 Robert Diamond, “The Diction of the Signed Poems of Cynewulf,” PQ, xxxviii (1959), 234, finds that Cynewulf's work is 62.7 per cent formulaic. Of the 32 half-lines in the Metrical Preface, at least nineteen (about 59 per cent) are demonstrably formulaic (the evidence given below for la, 5a, 6b, 7b, 10a, 12a, and 14b seems to me too weak to prove the influence of formulas, but it strongly suggests that the percentage of lines so influenced is much higher). To save space, I print only the evidence; the text itself is in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, edd. G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie (New York, 1931–42), vi, 110. The ASPR texts are used for all quotations and citations in this paper, and all abbreviations are those suggested by F. P. Magoun, Jr., “Abbreviated Titles for the Poems of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Corpus,” Études Anglaises, viii (1955), 138–46.

1a. MBo 1. 63a Sende ærendgewrit, Gen 655a Hwilc ærende swa; 1b. Mnl 97b, cf. Mnl 139a and for Latin proper name as b-verse cf. MBo 1.52b, 20.51b; 2a. Chr 678a, cf. Mnl 103a; 2b. Ele 1015b westan brohton, Ele 995b aras brohton, Bwf 606b suþan scineÐ; 3a. Mnl 185a igbuende, DEg 37a egbuendra; 3b. Chr 64b swa hit ær gefyrn, Gen 1840b, XSt 116b swa he ær dyde, Ele 1262b þær him [eoh] fore; 4b. Phx 452b, cf. And 991a Cristes cempa; 5a. cf. Ele 1051b Rome bisceop, SFt 46b, 94b gumena papa; 5b. Ele 1017b leofspell manig, Gen 2207a sidland manig, Bwf 838b guÐrinc monig; 6a. Men 39a, 101a; 6b. Glc 1002a gleawmod gongan, Dan 439a gleawmode guman; 7a. Chr 442a, cf. Ele 382a on sefan snyttro; 7b. cf. Jln 494a searoþoncum slog, MBo 21.21b searogimma nan, Chr 1056a hreþerlocena hord; 8a-b. Gen 1631 þæt he moncynnes mæste hæfde, Bwf 2181 ac he mancynnes mæste cræfte; 8b. Gen 1220b worn gestrynde, PPs 83.12.4b miht gestreoneÐ; 9a. Gen 169b, Rdl 13.7b, cf. MEp 9a rodera waldend; 9b. Ele 129b Romwara cyning, MBo 1.34a Romwara bearn, MBo 30.4b magistra betst; 10a. Jln 84a monna leofost, MBo 14.55a manna swiÐost, MBo 7.24a monna modsefan; 10b. MBo 20.2b mæerÐum gefræge, Exo 394b hæleÐum gefrægost; 11b. CFB 13b Eadmund cyning, MBo 15.2a Neron cyning; 12a. cf. Jln 57 þæt þu mec awende worda þissa; 13a. Wds 138a simle suÐ oþþe norÐ, Bwf 858a þætte suÐ ne norÐ; 14a. Gen 680a broht from his bysene, MBo 12.7a Ðios oÐru bysen, Glc 528a ealra þara bisena; 14b. cf. Ele 1072a to þam bisceope, Ele 1217a æt þam bisceope; 15a. Chr 129b, DHl 27b sendan wolde; 16b. And 1424b læstan woldon, MBo 1.27b læstan dorsten.

9 Again, I give only the supporting evidence for the text, which is to be found in the ASPR, iii, 198. The evidence given below for verses 3b, 4b, 6a, 7a, 8a, 9a, and 13b is too slight to indicate the certain influence of formulas, though it seems to indicate such influence. 1a. Phx 13a þæt is wynsum wong, Phx 43b þa se æþela wong, Phx 418b ond se halga wong, for mec as first word see Rdl 6.1a Mec gesette soÐ, Rdl 9.1a Mec on þissum dagum; 1b. Phx 85b, 232b, 307b wundrum fæger, And 1492b wundrum fæste, And 491b mundum freorig; 2a–b. PPs 126.4.4 of innaÐe ærest cende; 2a. Whl 55a, cf. PPs 131.12.2a þe of his innaÐe; 2b. Jln 164b ærest grette, Glc 179b ærest ærærde; 3b. PPs 147.5.2a swa þu wulle flys; 4b. And 817b hygeþances gleaw, Chr 1330b hygeþonces ferÐ; 5b. Bwf 383b þass ic wen hæbbe, Bwf 2150b ic lyt hafu, Bwf 950b þe ic geweald hæbbe; 6a. Rdl 2.2a under yÐa geþræc, Rdl 22.7a atol yÐa geþræc; 7a. Rdl 10.9a þa mec lifgende, Rdl 81.8a and mec stondende; 7b. Chr 809b reþe scriÐeÐ, MBo 28.16b recene scriÐeÐ, Bwf 163b hwyrftum scriþaÐ; 8a. Rdl 15.7a gif mec onhæle, Rdl 62.5a se mec on þyÐ, Rdl 16.6a ond mec stiþe wiÐ; 9a–b. cf. Rdl 40.85 wrætlice gewefan wundor-cræfte; 9b. Gen 2187 herges cræftum, Exo 30b soÐum cræftum, Jln 480b minum cræftum; 10b. Rdl 14.11b hyrstum frætwed, Glc 806b sawle frætwaÐ; 11b. Bwf 266b, 309b wide geond eorþan, MBo 6.5a ealle ofer eorÐan, Gen 143a ece ofer eorÐan; 12a Exo 253a ahleop þa for hæleÐum; Ele 1272a þonne he for hæleÐum, MBo 26.57a hatan for herigum; 13a. And 733a secge soÐcwidum; XSt 469a sæde soÐcwidum; 13b. And 817b hygeþances gleaw, PCP 7b searoÐonca hord, cf. Jln 494a searoþoncum slog, And 557a Saga, þances gleaw, Phx 144a þrist, þonces gleaw; 14a. PPs 65.1.2a wordum wislicum, Ele 314a weras wisfæst, Bwf 626a wisfæst wordum, cf. Chr 65 witgan wisfæst wordum sægdon; 14b. Rdl 28.13b, Rdl 41.9b hwæt seo wiht sy.

10 Diamond found that the Psalms are about 50 per cent formulaic; The Diction of the Anglo-Saxon Metrical Psalms, p. 6.

11 Lord, The Singer of Tales, pp. 13–29, describes the process of oral composition and discusses, pp. 129–130, the lettered text and the oral singer. For an example of how Old English singers might have handled translation, see F. P. Magoun, Jr, “Bede's Story of Caedmon: The Case History of an Anglo-Saxon Oral Singer,” Speculum, xxx (1955), 49–63.

12 The Latin from which the following passage is translated is printed in A. S. Cook's edition: The Old English Elene, Phoenix, and, Physiologus (New Haven, 1919). The passage was chosen at random and my analysis of other samples shows that it is typical of the poem. The supporting evidence is: 85a. Phx 448a, Whl 26a wic weardiaþ; in the Phoenix, weardian always appears as the final word in the verse; 85b. Phx 232b, 307b; 86a. Phx 100a fugel feþrum wlonc, Phx 266a fugel feþrum deal; 86b. MBo 26.15b þæt is Tile haten, cf. Gen 1134b Enos haten, Bwf 373b Ecgþeo haten; 87a. Wan la Oft him anhaga, And 1351a to þam anhagan; 87b. Phx 90b, 114a siÐ bihealdan, MBo 11.66b eard gebrædan, Bwf 1129b eard gemunde; 88a. Fnb 23a, DEg 24b deormod hæleþ, And 626a, Glc 952a deormod on degle, MBo 26.92a diora drohtaÐ; 88b. Phx 39b ne him lig sceþeÐ, Phx 400b þær him niþ gescod; 89a. And 1226a on þam welwange, Chr 459a on þam wildæge; 89b. Phx 181b, Gen 1542b; 90a. MBo 4.16a þæt he þære sunnan, Phx 120a sona swa seo sunne, Phx 141a oþþæt seo sunne; 90b. Phx 114a, Ele 243b, se Ðone siÐ beheold, and cf. 87b above; 91a. XSt 300b us ongean cumaÐ, and cf. 93a and 102a below; 91b. cf. Brb 15b Godes condel beorht, Jln 454b wuldres condel; 92a. Phx 303a; 92b. Chr 849b georne biþencen, Chr 753b georne gelyfaÐ, Bwf 1135b sele biwitiaÐ, Bwf 1428b oft bewitigaÐ; 93a–b. PPS 103.21.1 Syþþan up cumeÐ æÐele sunne; 93a. Phx 102a, cf. 91a above; 93b. Chr 607a, cf. Phx 2b æþelast londa, Phx 119b mærost tungla; 94a. And 278a of yÐlide, Chr 863a ealde yÐmearas; 94b. Phx 290b eastan lixeÐ, cf. 102b below; 95a. Phx 197a fæder frymÐa gehwæs, Chr 472a fæder frumsceafta, Glc 971a þæt he fyrngewyrht, And 737a Frod fyrngeweorc; 95b. Chr 507b, 522b, Jln 564a; 96a. Dan 488a swutol tacen godes, cf. Bwf 570a beorht beacen Godes, and cf. Gen 2377a torhtum tacne, Chr 642 Noldan he þa torhtan tacen oncnawan; 96b. cf. Wan 55b cearo biÐ geniwad, MBo 6.4b hræÐe bioÐ aÐistrod; 97a. Ele 1271a gewitaþ under wolcnum, Bwf 234a gewat him þa to waroÐe, DrR 133a gewiton of worulde dream; 97b. cf. Phx 2a eastdælas on; 98a. XSt 402a dyne on dægred, SmS 216a dracena on dægred; 98b. Glc 1218b ond þære deorcan niht, And 1462a on þære deorcan niht; 99a. Phx 162a west gewiteÐ, Whl 58a ut gewiteÐ; 99b. Phx 161b; 100a. see 86a above; 100b. Bwf 1359b þær fyrgenstream, Bwf 2128b under firgenstream; 101a. cf. MBo 9.40a swa swa lyft and lagu; 101b. Chr 397b þringaÐ georne, SmS 317b healdaÐ georne, SmS 266b locaÐ unhiere, SmS 383b locaÐ geneahhe; 102a. see 93a above; 102b. see 94b above; 103a. Bwf 507a on sidne sæ, Chr 852a geond sidne sæ, Phx 498a, Ele 1289a ofer sidne grund; 103b. XSt 350b swegles leoman, cf. Phx 288b þonne swegles leoht; 104a. Phx 26b ac se æpel feld, Phx 43b þa se æþela wong, Phx 614b him se æþela cyning; 104b. MBo 5.12a swa oft æspringe, Aza 134a ond þec ealle æspringe; 105a. Glc 1190a wærfæst wunian, Jln 238a wærfæst wunade, cf. Phx 609a ac hy in wlite wuniaÐ; 105b. Phx 362a wyllestreama, Phx 109b wyllgespryngum.

13 675a. Glc 1080a, cf. Ele 1308a geseon, sigora god; 676a. Glc 609b ond him lof singan, Glc 24b and his lof ræraÐ; 677a. Phx 621a, Chr 1246a.

14 Other examples are the Summons to Prayer (ASPR, vi, 69) and Aldhelm (ASPR, vi, 97), quoted at the end of this essay. In Aldhelm a few Greek words are also used.

15 The Singer of Tales, p. 129. This is the sense in which oral verse is “extemporaneous.” R. P. Creed, “On the Possibility of Criticizing Old English Poetry,” Texas Studies in Lang. and Lit., iii (1961), 97–106, notes some of the implications of this sort of composition; he observes that “the hypothesis of oral art must involve the hypothesizing of a special kind of audience. This audience must respond, and respond immediately

ÐHa ongan se Wisdom
singan 7 giddode þus:
þōn seo sunne on hadrū heofone
beorhtost scineÐ, þōn aþeostriaÐ
ealle steorran
forþāþe heora beorhtnes ne beoÐ nan
beorhtnes for hire.
þōn smylte blaweÐ suþanwestan
wind, þōn weaxaÐ swiÐe hraÐe
feldes blosman;
ac þōn se stearca wind cymÐ
norþaneastan, þōn toweorpÐ he swiÐe hraþe
þære rosan wlite; swa oft þone to smylton sæ
Ðees norÐawindes yst
onstyretÐ.
Eala þæt nanwuht nis fæste stondendes
weorces a wuniende on worulde.

to what it hears. … The singer can expand his story in the warmth of a delighted audience and contract it when the audience grows cold“ (p. 100). The immediate reaction of the audience and the function of that reaction in shaping the narrative is what sets oral verse apart from other medieval poetry, most of which was written for oral delivery in a style that was partially shaped by this method of publication. See Ruth Crosby, ”Oral Delivery in the Middle Ages,“ Speculum, xi (1936), 88–110, and ”Chaucer and the Custom of Oral Delivery,“ Speculum, xii (1938), 413–432, and B. H. Bronson, ”Chaucer's Art in Relation to His Audience,“ in Five Studies in Literature, Univ. of Calif. Publ. in English, viii, No. 1 (1940).

16 This is not to say that the standards a critic might apply to an orally composed text are necessarily lower than those he brings to a written work, but it is to say that the standards are different in such matters as structure, for example. As Creed says of oral verse (“On the Possibility of Criticizing Old English Poetry,” p. 98), “We should not look for certain excellences in such a poem,” where the apparently singular phrase or the use of a certain theme may be due to the tradition rather than the poet. This is true of any highly traditional work, whether a Latin poem of Aldhelm's, a Middle English romance, or an Old English narrative, but for oral verse it is more nearly a rule than for written verse, in which, after cautiously observing such warnings, we should discover whatever excellences are there. Especially should we do so in Old English poetry, whose excellences are still but imperfectly known.

17 Lord, The Singer of Tales, p. 129, rejects the tendency of medievalists “to seek a solution to the problems raised by the discovery of oral characteristics in some of the poems in their fields by recourse to the term ‘transitional’.” R. D. Stevick, “The Oral-Formulaic Analyses of Old English Verse,” Speculum, xxxvii (1962), 382–389, discusses the difficulties raised by the “transitional” hypothesis.

18 Claes Schaar, “On a New Theory of Old English Poetic Diction,” Neopkil, lx (1956), 301–305, has argued for this position. A small but neat example to support it is offered by Riddle 35 in the Exeter Book. It evidently shared an exemplar with the Leiden Riddle, since the two versions are practically identical up to the last two lines, which translate Aldhelm's final verse: “Spicula non vereor longis exempta pharetris.” The Leiden Riddle has the translation: “ni anoegun ic me aerigfaerae egsan brogum, / Ðeh Ði n[…]n siæ niudlicae ob cocrum” (ASPR, vi, 109). These lines were either missing or corrupt in the Exeter scribe's copy, and so he added two formulaic lines to provide a conclusion (see n. 9 above). The scribe who translated the Old Saxon Genesis also wrote formulas, even though he tried to be very faithful to his source. The first line in the surviving Old Saxon fragment is “ ‘Uuela that thu nu, Eua, habas,’ quÐ) AÐam, ‘ubilo gimarkot’ ”; the English scribe changes this to the more formulaic, “Hwæt, þu Eue, hæfst yfelegemearcod” (Gen. 791; for the Old Saxon fragment see ASPR, i, 171).

19 Magoun's sample passages show that Beowulf is around 75 per cent formulaic and Christ and Satan about 65 per cent (“The Oral-Formulaic Character,” in Nicholson, pp. 216–221); Diamond (see n. 8 above) finds that Cynewulf's work is about 63 per cent formulaic. If the search for evidence is restricted only to the works of Cynewulf, his poems are about 43 per cent formulaic (“The Diction of the Signed Poems of Cynewulf,” p. 234); Creed found that within Beowulf about 4200 of the 6364 verses—about 66 per cent—are formulaic (“On the Possibility of Criticizing Old English Poetry,” p. 97). Depending only on the Meters themselves for evidence, the passage below is around 60 per cent formulaic, and an analysis of a number of other passages yields about the same percentage. A full analysis of the 3500 verses (1750 lines) of the Meters shows that they contain about 250 whole-verse formulas used around 700 times; one such formula, “ealla gesceafta,” is used at least twenty-two times. Diamond (p. 234) found that this sort of “whole-verse” formula accounts for 19.9 per cent of Cynewulf's verses, 1037 out of 5194 (2598 lines). Creed (p. 97) reports, “I have counted and classified over 400 different whole-verse formulas in Beowulf repeated at least once—some as many as twelve times and therefore constituting over 1200 of the 6364 verses of the poem.” In the passage from Phoenix analyzed above, the 42 half-lines contain nine whole-verse formulas repeated elsewhere in the poem, again around one in five. It is curious that the proportion should remain roughly the same despite the size of the sample.

20 W. J. Sedgefield, King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae (Oxford, 1899), p. xxxviii.

21 The prose is from Sedgefield's edition, p. 21. The supporting evidence is: la–2b. For this combination of introductory formulas see MBo 7.1–3, 8.1–3; la. MBo 7.39a þær se wisdom a; 1b. Wds 1b, Bwf 259b; 2a–b. MBo 8.3 singan soÐcwidas, and þus selfa cwæÐ; 2a. MBo 7.3a song soÐcwida, cf. Rdl 35.13a saga soÐcwidum; 2b. cf. And 329b he Ðæt sylfa cwæÐ, And 62b, 173b and þus wordum cwæÐ; 3a–b. MBo 5.1 ÐHu meaht be Ðære sunnan sweotole geþencean; 3a. Phx 141a oþþæt sio sunne, MBo 4.6a swylce seo sunne; 3b. MBo 5.3b beorhtost scineÐ, MBo 22.24b hlutrost scineÐ; 4a. MBo 20.230a hadre on heofonum, MBo 28.49a hadrum heofone, cf. Glc 685a, 1283a halig of heofonum; 4b. cf. MBo 13.37b hræÐe bioÐ forsewene; 5a. Bwf 802a, 2007a ænig ofer eorÐan, MBo 20.85a fyr ofer eorÐan; 5b. MBo 5.2b oÐrum steorran, MBo 24.24b oÐrum steorrum; 6a. MBo 8.12a ForÐæm hiora nænig, cf. MBo 20. 269a forÐæm þu eart sio birhtu; 6b. cf. JgD II.38a ne þær owiht, PPs 68.23.2b syþþan awiht; 7a–b. MBo 21.42 to metanne wiÐ þæt micle leoht; 7b. MBo 17.10a se þære sunnan leoht, MBo 21.40b þæt þære sunnan sie; 8b. MBo 4.22a, cf. Phx 324b, Chr 884b suþan ond norþan; 9a. MBo 7.26a; 9b. cf. 12b below; 10a. Pnt 47a wyrta blostmum, Phx 74b fealwe blostman; 10b. cf. And 1041b Fægen wæron siÐes; 11a. Bwf 3117a þonne stræla storm, cf. MBo 12.14b and se stearca wind, MBo 4.22b þa ær se swearta storm; 11b. MBo 7.25b þonne hi strong dreceÐ, cf. MBo 13.62b oÐ hio eft cymeÐ, MBo 20.161b, 178b þurh þa strongan meaht; 12a. MBo 4.23a, 12.15a; 12b. Bwf 748b he onfeng hraþe, Bwf 2968b ac forgeald hraÐe, cf. 9b above; 13a. MBo 30.6a þære sunnan wlite, MBo 7.31a Ðisse worulde wlite; 13b. cf. Gen 114b and þis rume land, LPr I.5b eac þon on rumre fold, Chr 1107a ond eac þa ealdan wunde; 14a. cf. MBo 5.7b suÐerne wind, MBo 5.9b micia yst; 14b. Jln 343b, HbM 39a nyde gebæded, Brb 33b nede gebeded; 15a–b. cf. Rdl 3.18 streamas styrian ond to staþe þywan; 15a. cf. SlB II.42a stronge gestyred, and cf. 11b above; 15b. MBo 3.3b stormas beataÐ, Gen 1326b swiÐor beataÐ, cf. Rdl 2.6a streamas staþu beataÐ; 16a. MBo 4.25a Eala hwæt, on eorÐan, XSt 303a and þæt on eorÐan; 16b. cf. MBo 1.70a heht fæstlice, Chr 312a swa fæstlice, MBo 9.62b, 25.59b awuht goodes; 17a–b. cf. MBo 11.17 Swa hit eac to worulde sceal wunian forÐ, PPs 54. 18.2 þe ær worulde wæs and nu wunaÐ ece; 17a. MBo 2.18a, 7.56a wære on worulde; 17b. PPs 54.18.2b and nu wunaÐ ece.

22 I am using “theme” in the way it has been used in Old English studies, as in Magoun's “The Theme of the Beasts of Battle in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, lvi (1955), 85–90, in which a “theme” seems to be a conventional situation combining formulaic elements in a number of ways. For examples of the storm see MBo 3.3-8a, 5.4-11, 12.11-17, and see Rdl 2.5-10a, 3.17-21a, Gen 1324b-26. The ingredients are wind, sea, cliff or shore, and sometimes darkness and noise, and it appears to be related to the theme of “cold weather” discussed by Robert E. Diamond, “Theme as Ornament in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” PMLA, lxxvi (1961), 468.

23 “Runcofa,” 22.59 is apparently unique to the Meters; 20.171–175 is a most effective use of metaphor, with the sun as“se scire scell.”

24 The situation was apparently rather similar to that which obtained in Middle English times; the poems of the Alliterative Revival were also indebted to an oral tradition, as shown by Ronald A. Waldron, “Oral-Formulaic Technique and Middle English Alliterative Poetry,” Speculum, xxxii (1957), 792–804, but these poems were clearly literate productions.

25 For the “end-stopped” versus the “run-on” styles see Kemp Malone's discussion in A Literary History of England, ed. A. C. Baugh (New York, 1948), pp. 26–28. Though editors' punctuations are surely no absolute test, the punctuation of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records is useful at least for comparing the relative degrees of enjambement in different poems, since presumably the editors' practice was uniform from one poem to another. Here are the numbers of full stops (periods, colons, semicolons) at the ends of the first half-lines and at the ends of the second half-lines in the first 100 typographic lines in each of the following poems: Beowulf 17 and 20; Christ and Satan 20 and 23; Meters of Boethius 28 and 19; Phoenix 15 and 16; Elene 31 and 12. Counting every mark of punctuation, the figures are: Beowulf 47 and 64; Christ and Satan 47 and 67; Meters of Boethius 56 and 46; Phoenix 61 and 61; Elene 65 and 59.

26 Probably such a theme accounts for the resemblances between Phx 393–423 and Glc 819–70, 980–96, Chr 1379–1413, XSt 408–19, 471–78, Jln 494–505. The similarities led Cook (see his note to Phx 393 in his The Old English Elene, Phænix, and Physiologus, New Haven, 1909) to accept the theory of C. Abbetmeyer, Old English Poetical Motives Derived from the Doctrine of Sin (Baltimore, 1903), p. 28, that these passages have a common source.

27 E.g., 20.82, 20.248; in The Coronation of Edgar (ASPR, vi, 21) the formula “mine gefræge” appears in l. 9, and in l. 14 a written source is claimed—“þæs Ðe gewritu secgaÐ.”

28 There is the possibility, as Alain Renoir has pointed out to me, that the runic signatures originated with some scribe rather than Cynewulf himself; it seems to me easier to regard them as Cynewulf's.

29 See especially Stanley B. Greenfield, “The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of ‘Exile’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Speculum, xxx (1955), 200–206, and Robert P. Creed, “On the Possibility of Criticizing Old English Poetry.”

30 If William of Malmesbury can be trusted, then it is possible that Aldhelm was an oral singer (De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, London, 1870), p. 336. If so, literacy and oral verse-making co-existed from very early times in England. It is equally possible that Aldhelm wrote his poems, since, again on William's authority, they survived in manuscript until at least the time of Alfred, who regarded Aldhelm as the best poet of his age.