Hopkins and Cynewulf: "the Wreck of the Deutschland," "the Windhover," "the Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe," and the Christ‪.‬

Cynewulf's Christ is a title given in the mid-nineteenth century to a series of three poems that appear together and open The Exeter Book, a manuscript that has belonged to the Chapter Library of Exeter Cathedral at least since 1072. The three poems, "Advent," "The Ascension," and "The Last Judgment," written in the second half of the eighth century, have been attributed to Cynewulf whose runic signature is inscribed into the final lines of "The Ascension." (1) Nothing is known of the poet, but his ecclesiastical knowledge, scriptural learning, and poetic ability indicate a clerical or monastic author whose work led to a school of imitators of his religious poetry (Calder, pp. 24-25). Although the order of Nativity, Ascension, and Second Coming follow the traditional New Testament story of Christ and would seem to support the unity of the work, stylistic, structural, and formal differences between the three poems have led modern scholars to doubt the attribution of the first and third poems to Cynewulf. (2) The "Advent" verses are a series of lyrics based on the liturgical prayers of the Great Antiphons; "The Ascension" is a poetic version of a Latin Gospel homily by Gregory the Great; and "The Last Judgment" is an apocalyptic poem with a mixture of narrative, descriptive, and lyrical passages. For the purposes of this paper, however, the Victorian idea of the unity of the three poems as the Christ and Cynewulf's authorship will be assumed in discussing the work as an analogue of three of Hopkins' poems.