It is a remarkable fact that only two of these poets are known to us by name, Caedmon and Cynewulf.  We find the story of the inspiration, work, and death of Caedmon, the earlier of these, told in the pages of Bede.  The date of his birth is not given, but his death fell in 680.  He was a Northumbrian, and was connected in a lay capacity with the great monastery of Whitby.  He was uneducated, and not endowed in his earlier life with the gift of song.  One night, after he had fled in mortification from a feast where all were required to improvise and sing, he received, as he slept, the divine inspiration.  The next day he made known his new gift to the authorities of the monastery.  After he had triumphantly made good his claims, he was admitted to holy orders, and began his work of paraphrasing into noble verse portions of the Scriptures that were read to him.  Of the body of poetry that comes down to us under his name, we cannot be sure that any is his, unless we except the short passage given here.  It is certainly the work of different poets, and varies in merit.  The evidence seems conclusive that he was a poet of high order, that his influence was very great, and that many others wrote in his manner.  The actors and the scenery of the Caedmonian poetry are entirely Anglo-Saxon, only the names and the outline of the narrative being biblical; and the spirit of battle that breathes in some passages is the same that we find in the heathen epic.

Cynewulf was most probably a Northumbrian, though this is sometimes questioned.  The dates of his birth and death are unknown.  It seems established, however, that his work belongs to the eighth century.  A great deal of controversy has arisen over a number of poems that have been ascribed to him and denied to him with equal persistency.  But we stand upon sure ground in regard to four poems, the ‘Christ,’ the ’Fates of the Apostles,’ ‘Juliana,’ and ‘Elene’; for he has signed them in runes.  If the runic enigma in the first of the ‘Riddles’ has been correctly interpreted, then they, or portions of them, are his also.  But about this there is much doubt.  The ‘Andreas’ and the ’Dream of the Rood’ may be mentioned as being of exceptional interest among the poems that are almost certainly his.  In the latter, he tells, in a personal strain, the story of the appearance to him of the holy cross, and of his conversion and dedication of himself to the service of Christ.  The ‘Elene,’ generally considered the finest of his poems, is the story of the miraculous finding of the holy cross by St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine.  The poet has lent great charm to the tradition in his treatment.  The poem sounds a triumphant note throughout, till we reach the epilogue, where the poet speaks in his own person and in a sadder tone.

The quality of Cynewulf’s poetry is unequal; but when he is at his best, he is a great poet and a great artist.  His personality appears in direct subjective utterance more plainly than does that of any other Anglo-Saxon poet.