The Schools of Cadmon and Cynewulf

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THE SCHOOLS OF CADMON AND CYNEWULF 1. The School of Caedmon. a) Caedmon’s Hymn The only known survivor from Cædmon’s oeuvre is his Hymn. The poem is known from twenty-one manuscript copies, making it the best-attested Old English poem after Bede’s Death Song and the best attested in the poetic corpus in manuscripts copied or owned in the British Isles during the Anglo-Saxon period. The Hymn also has by far the most complicated known textual history of any surviving Anglo-Saxon poem. It is found in two dialects and five distinct recensions. It is one of the earliest attested examples of written Old English and one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. Together with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, Cædmon's Hymn is one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard, meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc, weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs, ece drihten, or onstealde. He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend; þa middangeard moncynnes weard, ece drihten, æfter teode firum foldan, frea ælmihtig. Modern English translation Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom, the might of the Creator, and his thought, the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders the Eternal Lord established in the beginning. He first created for the sons of men Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator, then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind, the Eternal Lord, afterwards made, the earth for men, the Almighty Lord. 1. Circle a hemistich. 2. In one line, mark the two stresses in each hemistich using apostrophes ('). 3. Mark one line of alliteration by underlining the words that alliterate. 4. Explain what alliteration is. 5. Does

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