CaedmonEngLit

Cædmon's Hymn

Cædmon's Hymn is the sole surviving composition of the illiterate cowherd who became the forefather of Old English Christian poetry. St. Bede writes about the poet and his work in his Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, forming a prominent landmark and reference point for the contemporary study of Old English prosody, the early influence Christianity had on the songs and poetry of the Anglo-Saxon people after their conversion, and the historical foundations of English Literature in totality. Like many Anglo-Saxon and Old English pieces, it was designed to be sung aloud and was never physically recorded by Cædmon himself, but was written and preserved by other literate individuals. The Hymn itself was composed between 658 and 680, recorded in the earlier part of the 8th century, and survives today in at least fourteen verified manuscript copies. Although there is some debate as to whether or not the inscriptions upon the Ruthwell Cross or Franks Casket may deserve this title, it is often agreed upon by scholars that “Caedmon’s Hymn is the earliest documented oral poem in English History.”

The Hymn's form and role in Old English Prosody

Caedmon’s hymn is often approached as if it was a poem, even though the Historia Ecclesiastica referrers to the work as a song and despite the fact that Cædmon designed it to be an oral piece that praised and worshipped God. It is seldom considered by hymnologist as an actual hymn since it does not meet the formal and structural criteria of hymnody. By modern standards, a “true” hymn must be metrical, having verses that are equal in length, as well as a controlled syllable count. A hymn must also contain a refrain that can be sung in “antiphonal responsive liturgies"", have a balanced structure, and a closure where the syllables mimic the opening line. Caedmon’s Hymn, as we know it today, does not qualify as a true hymn since its more poetic structure does not align with modern standards hymnody. Regardless of the fact that the suprasegmentals in the hymn's original form seem to show that when it was constructed it would have been regarded as a true hymn, since the 16th century it has been primarily considered by scholars as a poem.

Nearly all Old English poetry (whether or not it was written or sung) follows the same general verse form. Since rhyme was nonexistent in early Old English poetry, and would not become a component of the periods prosody until its later stages, one of the central literary device of the Hymn is alliteration (the repetition of similar sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables). As was common with poetry of the period, the nine lines of the Hymn are divided into eighteen half-lines by a medial caesura(pause or break in the middle of the line); the four principle stresses of each line are in turn divided evenly, allotting each half line with two stresses. It is generally acknowledged that the text can be separated into two rhetorical sections (although some scholars believe it could be divided into three), based on theme, syntax and pacing; the first being lines one to four and the second being lines five to nine. Undoubtedly, it is often difficult to savor the content and complexities of Cædmon's Hymn when reading its modern English equivalent, but even Bede himself stated (in regards to his own Latin translation of Cædmon's Hymn) that, “it is impossible to make a literal translation, no matter how well written, of poetry into another language without losing some of the beauty and dignity” of the piece.

Oral-Formulaic analysis experts, in efforts to understand the mechanics of the oral Old English verse, have tried to duplicate the believed creating process of Anglo-Saxon poets. By unmaking the old verses and trying to remake them using the formulas of the time period it has been found that Anglo-Saxon poetry does have a traditional formulaic style. However, it is believed that the poetry that comes from this time period is a result of a transitional time in literature, where oral poems and songs were being translated and modified for the purpose of reading. This process would have been more than likely done by English monks and clergymen, who not only were educated in Christian Latin Literature but were familiar with oral traditions and translating them into written poetry.

Text & Translation

The manuscripts containing Caedmon’s hymn began to emerge in the eighth century all the way through the twelfth. They show two separate manuscript environments. They show the transformation of the hymn as it goes from an oral tradition to a literate one. In the West Saxon Translation of the Historia Ecclesiastica, the Hymn is made a part of the main text. However, in the Latin translation, the hymn appears only as a gloss to the paraphrase of the song. Between the fourteen manuscripts, the hymn only appears in two dialects. The importance of the two translations is that it shows the formatting practices of Latin and Old English during those five centuries. The word division, capitalization, punctuation, as well as where the text is found on the page all helps to give fuller understanding to the Old English language which at the time was new to being written, as well as to its Latin counterpart, which is considered a textual language. The eighth century Latin manuscripts of Historia Ecclesiastica contain pronounced visual cues to help with the proper reading of the hymn. This is done by way of capitalization and placing the text in two distinct columns. In later editions of Historia the hymn is laid out with each verses first capital written in red, and the end of each verse written in a lighter color. The lighter ink expresses a caesura in the text while the darker ink shows a terminal punctuation. All this helped to differentiate between the hymn and the surrounding Latin prose, which has lead some experts to believe that these visual cues were needed to properly read the versus. The Latin copies of the hymn are not the same as the Old English copies. The old English lack the general uniformity in style that the Latin copies posses. There are variations of the subject (we), and in some copies it is eradicated all together. It is believed by some experts that some manuscripts were not written as copies of previous manuscripts, but written by memorization. Despite the differences in the Hymn found in the Old English Manuscripts, each copy of the hymn is metrically, semantically, and syntactically correct. These manuscripts bare testament of a supposed transitional period where oral poems were being place into written word with the specific purpose of giving a predetermined message to its reader. The translation of Caedmon's Hymn makes it readily available for a larger audience but greatly discredits the beauty. It loses the alliteration that only the original had. As the various manuscripts of the hymn show, as the hymn continues to translated from old English to Latin to English is loses more and more of its original self. In some sections entire lines do not translate at all.

Old English	Latin	English
Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard metudæs mehti and his modgithanc uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs eci dryctin or astelidæ he ærist scop aeldu barnum hefen to hrofæ halig sceppend tha middingard moncynnæs uard eci dryctin æfter tiadæ firum foldu frea allmehtig.	Nunc laudare debemus auctorem regni caelestis potentiam Creatoris et consilium illius facta Patris gloriae quomodo ille cum sit aeternus Deus omnium miraculorum auctor extitit qui primo filiis hominum caelum pro culmine tecti dehinc terram Custos humani generis omnipotens creauit	Now we must praise heaven-kingdom’s Guardian, the Measurer’s might and his mind-plans, the work of the Glory-Father, when he of wonders of every one, eternal Lord, the beginning established. He first created for men’s sons heaven as a roof, holy creator; then middle-earth mankind’s Guardian, eternal Lord, afterwards made- for men earth, Master almighty.

Originality and Significance

It is doubtful that the majority of readers today (regardless of whether or not they are familiar with Old English religious poetry) would find the form and content of Cædmon’s Hymn to be radically innovative or awe-inspiring—but this is where “we are led astray by our knowledge of later poetry .” Since Cædmon’s compositions had been produced in such a short time after Northumbria had been converted to Christianity, the diction and content of his Hymn would have hardly been considered conventional or banal. Cædmon utilized a form of Anglo-Saxon poetry traditionally used for the veneration of kings and princes, and altered the vernacular in a way that would cause it to refer to God instead of a monarch. For instance, the phrase rices weard (keeper of the kingdom) was changed to heofonrices weard (keeper of the kingdom of heaven), in order to shift the emphasis away from earthly kings to his Godly king. Despite the great deal of scholarly debate and speculation as to whether or not there existed pre-Cædmonian Christian composers from which Cædmon may have been influenced, the evidence that exists makes it “seem reasonably clear that Cædmon coined the Christian poetic formulas that we find in the Hymn,” which influenced and were employed by generations of later poets. Cædmon’s work “had a newness that it lost in the course of time,” but it has been asserted by many that his poetic innovations “entitle him to be reckoned a genius.”

Notes

1. Bammesberger, Alfred. "Nu Scylun Hergan (Caedmon's Hymn, 1a)." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews 21.4 (2008): 2-6. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.

2. Altman, Rochelle. "Hymnody, Graphotactics, and 'Cædmon's Hymn'." Philological Review 34.2 (2008): 1-27. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.

3. Richards, Mary P., ed. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts Basic Readings. New York, 1994. Google Book Search.Web. 24 February 2010.

4. O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien. “Orality and the Developing Text of Caedmon’s Hymn.” Speculum 62.1 (Jan, 1987): 1-20. JSTOR. Web. 24 February 2010.

5. Stevick, Robert D. “The Oral-Formulaic Analyses of Old English Verse.” Speculum 37.3 (Jul, 1962):382-389. JSTOR. Web. 3 March 2010.

6. O’Donnell, Daniel P. “Bede’s Strategy in Paraphrasing Caedmon’s Hymn.” Journal of English and Germanic Philogoy 103.4 (October, 2004)JSTOR.Web. 3 March 2010.

7. “Caedmon’s Hymn.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed.1. 2006. 18-26. Print.

8. Malon, Kemp. “Modern Language Notes.” The Johns Hopkins University Press 76.3 (1961): 193-195. JSTOR. Web. 26 February 2010.