ABSTRACT
On the basis of internal evidence, it is impossible to determine whether the Cynewulf poems were composed orally and written down by a scribe, were composed with pen in hand in the ordinary modern way, or were composed by a learned poet who was making use of the traditional poetic formulas handed down to him from an age when all poems were oral. The first twenty-nine lines of Fates of the Apostles, is offered as a sample of Cynewulf’s use of traditional poetic formulas. Solid underscoring indicates a formula; broken underscoring indicates a substitution in a formulaic system. The supporting evidence is taken from the entire corpus of Old English poetry. The percentages of demonstrably formulaic verses run much higher when the poems are checked for repeats against the whole corpus of Old English poetry. Such a high percentage of repeated verses strongly suggests that the poems were composed in the traditional formulaic style.
