CYNEWULF. – English poet, probably from Northumbria, who lived in the latter part of the eighth century.
Author of four poems: Ascension, The legend of st. Juliana, The Elene (in fifteen cantos), and The fates of Apostles, contained in the Exeter and Vercelli codices.
The greatest among these is Ascension: placed in the manuscript between two other poems, Nativity and Day of Judgement, attributed to C., it forms with them the cycle Christ, wholly pervaded by confidence in divine justice and goodness. The final part is original in conception: angels and saints gather on Zion, and Christ appears there in a flame of light, while the universe is consumed in conflagration; then, with its roots in the mountain and its summit in heaven, a great cross rises, stained with the blood of the King, but so radiant that all the darkness of the cosmos is drowned in red gleams.