SOURCE: James H. Wilson, "Cynewulf," in Christian Theology and Old English Poetry, Mouton, 1974, pp. 141-80.

In the essay that follows, Wilson studies the Christ in detail and claims, in contrast to the conclusion reached by some critical scholarship, that the poem is arguably the work of a single author.

Since Benjamin Thorpe brought out his edition of The Exeter Book in 1842, most of the scholarship on the material contained in the first 1664 lines of that Old English codex has been centered around two problems: one, the unity and authorship of the three sections into which the manuscript material is divided, and, two, the identity of Cynewulf, whose name appears in runes in the closing lines of the second section. There is still great lack of agreement as to the unity and authorship of the lines, and the identity of the man Cynewulf has never been established nor does...