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Caedmon

Literary Character
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The earliest known English poet (7th century CE), renowned for his vernacular hymn praising God as creator.

Detailed Definition
Caedmon, a 7th-century Northumbrian cowherd, composed religious verse after a divine dream, marking the birth of Christian Old English poetry. His story is told by Bede. In poetry, he appears as the archetypal inspired layman, symbolizing divine grace in vernacular verse and the fusion of Germanic oral tradition with Christian doctrine.
Example
Example in poetry:
Caedmon’s Hymn constructs a humble poet-character praising God’s creation in Old English alliterative verse; The "Caedmon manuscript" (Junius 11) uses biblical narratives to frame Caedmon as a divinely inspired singer; Later poets like Milton echo Caedmon’s creation-praise persona in epic openings; Caedmon’s legend (from Bede) makes him a literary character symbolizing vernacular sacred poetry.
Additional Notes
Caedmon, the earliest named English poet, composed biblical paraphrases in Old English; his literary output features typological characters (e.g., Adam, Christ) rendered through vernacular adaptation, crucial for studying how sacred history is transformed into poetic persona in early medieval Christian verse.
Also Known As
Cædmon
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