The Earliest Poem in English and its Story

Dating from the latter half of the 7 th century CE, "Caedmon's Hymn" is the earliest surviving poem in native English verse. Written in Old English, the language spoken in England during the Early Middle Ages (before the Norman Conquest), the earliest manuscript version ever found was discovered just this year [2026] in the National Central Library in Rome, Italy. Please come learn about the culture that produced this poem, what we know of the poet Caedmon, and hear it read in the original Old English, and then translated into Modern English. Our guest presenter is Dr. Marsha Dutton, a Medieval scholar and retired professor of English at Ohio University.