The Development of the Old English Thought
(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...' gives the expression to the Rood, but nowhere in the poem uses it himself. 1 The Rutkwell Cross. The Runic form of this poem was first correctly deciphered by Kemble. The whole poem was afterward found in the Vercelli Book. The dialect of the lines on the Ruthwell Cross is regarded by Mr. Kemble as "that of N orthumbria in the seventh, eighth, and even the ninth centuries" (Archwologia, vol. xxviii.). Professor George Stephens made a special study of the Cross and discovered an additional Rune attributing the poem to Cedmon. It reads: Cedmon mw fauwtho. See The Ruthwell Cross, by Professor George-Stephens, F. S. A., London, 1866. The version in the Vercelli Book is in more modern dialect than that in Runes. Some attribute the poem to Cynewulf; he may have retouched it, and given it its present form. The poem breathes throughout charity, sweetness, piety. It is a dream, an allegory, the forerunner of the numerous dreams that subsequently figure in English literature: of Langland's, and Chaucer's, and Lydgate's, and Dunbar's, and John Bunyan's. But this wail of ' Cedmon for the friends of other days, with which the poem closes; this longing hope soon to join them; this living by anticipation in the celestial mansi0ns--is the last glimpse we get of the man till the hour when his-desires are to be fulfilled and his poetic soul passes from the beauties of earth to the bliss of heaven. Living in so elevated. a sphere of thought, Cedmon could find it in himself to write nothing but what tended to elevate and spiritualize the aspirations and emotions of human nature. The Venerable Beda bears testimony to this effect: "He never could compose frivolous and useless poems, but those alone...
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