Examples Of Literary Device In Beowulf

1. An example of a literary device on the story so far is "...And fiends, goblins, monsters, giants....", found in line 27. This literary device is an alliteration, defined as a repetition of an initial sound in a neighboring poem, and in line 27, the sound "s" is repeated.

The story of Beowulf is clearly an epic of mass proportions. It takes its readers through an immense journey of great battles with horrific beasts and also manages to teach about pride and honor. The main character Beowulf faces many challenges throughout the epic but conquers them in the end, giving the word “epic hero” its true meaning. The use of Alliteration, the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words, emphasized the certain image of nobility and principle.

First and foremost, Beowulf is a very strong warrior; he hails from the land of the Geats and is their best soldier. He is what many would call a thrill seeker and is drawn to danger, adventure but most of glory. Beowulf sets off in search of such glory and lets the seas take him where it may; this leads him to the town of Herot. Once there he is given a great opportunity by the great King Hrothgar, to prove his strength and obtain much glory. The task is to kill the terrible creature that haunts the town night after night, a creature named Grendel. Beowulf finds out more

1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

In the movie and book Beowulf, Beowulf represents a hero. Beowulf is like our modern day heroes, firefighters, policemen, military men, doctors and EMT’s. All of these men do the same thing as Beowulf did in the movie. The fight the villains and protect the innocent. Beowulf had super strength to help him defeat the villains and protect the innocent. "I have heard moreover that the monster scorns in his reckless way to use weapons; therefore, to heighten Hygelac 's fame and gladden his heart, I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of the broad shield, the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand is how it will be, a life-and-death fight with the fiend." (433-440) Although Grendel was a worthy opponent, he was still no match for Beowulf’s strength to kill the unbeatable monster.

Not only is Beowulf honorable and well respected, he is brave as well. His courage is shown by not hesitating to risk his own life to pursue the Dane’s enemies. By being self-assured, Beowulf is able to successfully defeat the fiends, Grendel and his infamous mother. At the time Beowulf is planning to pursue the vindictive dragon, the epic poem states, “I’ve never known fear, as a youth I fought in endless battles. I am old now, but I will fight again, seek fame still, If the dragon hiding in his tower dares to face me.”(ll. 2511-2515). He feels no fear, is confident in fighting the dragon alone, and has no qualms in risking his life to save others. He declares his bravery by saying, “When he comes to me I mean to stand, not run from his shooting flames, stand till fate decides which of us wins... No one else could do what I mean to, here, no man but me could hope to defeat this monster.”(ll. 2525-2534). In his actions, Beowulf’s bravery is clearly shown throughout the poem.

Beowulf son of the famous soldier Edegtho, comes to the rescue of Hrothgar. Hrothgar king of the Danes, which his land is being attacked by a treacherous monster named Grendel. Beowulf is described as a vigorous, fearless man of the Anglo Saxon times. Beowulf comes from a past generation of tenacious warriors. Like Beowulf’s dad, a famous soldier known far, and leader of many men. The Danes now see why Beowulf is such a fearless warrior. In Beowulf, the hero decides to fight without a weapon for three reasons he wants to be glorious, he is fearless, wanted to help the people of noble place and he wants to honor his people. Beowulf faces many conflicts fighting these dangerous monsters, but manages to defeat Grendel and his mother.

Another literary element that offer meaning to the poem is imagery, by simply allowing the readers to envision the events of the story. In the first part of the story (129-134), Beowulf is described as coming over “seas beating at the sand” while “the ship foamed through the sea like a bird.” This scene truly guides the readers to admire the vivid description of how proud and tough the ship looks. This ship in this case, becomes a metonymy for Beowulf himself, who is certainly proud and strong, resulting in the readers’ admiration. Additional imagery is used describing the mere, or lake, discussed above, with “storms [an] waves splash[ing] towards the sky, as dark as the air as black as the rain that the heavens weep” (440-442). This clearly illustrates how dreadful Grendel and his mothers’ home is. It intensely aids us to picture how grotesquely unpleasant the lake actually is. Near the end of the tale (lines 651-653], Beowulf “[strides] with his shield at his side and a mail shirt of his breast….. Toward the tower, under the rocky cliffs.” While Beowulf awaits the battle, the description of his armor and the details of each entry help us to respect how ready he is for his concluding battle. Even as an elderly man, Beowulf is a hero beyond compare. In closing, the use of imagery greatly enriches the readers’ experience of this heroic epic.

With much alliteration, imaginative kennings, and caesura. The narrator uses strong alliteration and does so quite intricately, using single, double and triple alliterations at points throughout the poem; such as in lines 30-32, “Then, when darkness had dropped, Grendel / Went up to Herot, wondering what the warriors / Would do in that hall when their drinking was done.” (L. 30-32) The narrator frequently uses kennings in this poem. A kenning in Anglo-Saxon literature is a metaphorical phrase or compound word that names an event, person, place, or thing indirectly. There are four different types of kennings that the narrator uses within Beowulf which are prepositional phrase (ex. shepherd of evil = Grendel, guardian of crime = Grendel), hyphenated compound (ex. sea-road = the ocean, ring-giver = king), possessive (ex. God’s bright beacon = the sun), and open compound (ex. wakeful sleeper = Beowulf) kennings. A unique quality of the style of Beowulf is caesura, which is seen in nearly every line within the poem. Caesura is a characteristic of Old English poetry; it is a pause or a break within a line of poetry and it is usually indicated by the natural rhythm of the language. Alliteration coincides with caesura; usually the first stressed syllable before the caesura alliterates with the first stressed syllable after the

One example of where the author of Beowulf used alliteration was in the quote ”For the first time in his life that famous prince fought with fate against him, with glory denied him. He knew it but he raised his sword and struck at the dragon's scaly hide” (2573). This took place while Beowulf was fighting the dragon near the end of the story. The author uses alliteration with the letter “f” to emphasize that in this fight fate was against Beowulf but throughout it also says that because of Beowulf's courage not only did he still go for the fight but he continued fighting even after he recognized that there was a really good chance that he would lose. This quote specifically emphasizes that fact that even though you don't know what fate awaits you, you still can’t expect victory without putting an attempt into the fight. Another example of alliteration that the author uses is in the quote “It fell, their courage had killed it, two noble cousins had joined in the dragon’s death” (2706). This example makes a big emphasis because it showed that even though Beowulf had died in the battle and fate was against him, he still ended up killing the dragon because he had the courage. He did lose his life but because of his courage he ended up saving the land of the Geats. Even though fate was against him he still ended up gaining victory because he had the

As mentioned that the scopes would use a lot of rhythmic devices to help them remember the poem in lines 376-378 the “H” sound is repeated "From that happy pilgrimage, mounted their hard-hooved/Horses, high-spirited stallions, and rode them. " this is an example of alliteration since the S sound is at the beginning, if the sound were to be in random places then is would be considered a consonance. During the battle with Grendel, Grendel picks beowulf up and sense that he is not like any other. “That shepherd of evil, guardian of crime,/Knew at once that nowhere on earth/Had he met a man whose hands were harder...” (269-272) Once Grendel had Beowulf in his hands he knew he was not dealing with a regular thane.

As Beowulf is called to vanquish the evil monster Grendel, he is portrayed as a confident, boastful warrior who fears nothing and will risk his life to fight for the people. He pretends to lie asleep while the rest of the warriors in Herot are genuinely resting. Grendel uses this time as the perfect setting to feast upon

Beowulf was a brave, strong, well respected, and had a stance that was viewed as a warrior by many. As Beowulf conquered many other creatures, he was determine to face Grendel as he heard that the monster was feared and he terrorized the people of Hrothgar. Than he took the best of Geats and was determined to conquer the monster because he was a protecter of the hall.

Beowulf shows his strength by fighting and killing the beasts that no one

The poem of Beowulf is one of the earliest recorded pieces of literature in history, written at an estimated time of around 1000 A.D. and set in the pagan world of sixth-century Scandinavia. Disregarding the poem’s age, the writing uses many of the same literary devices people use modern day-- such as kennings, alliteration, and caesura. Kennings are compound expressions used in Anglo-Saxon writings that have a metaphorical meaning. For example, the word sea-traveler could be used to describe a boat. Alliteration is when there is a repetition of words that start with the same letter. Caesura is a type of verse unique to Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and Latin literature that breaks the text into two with each side sharing a similar number of syllables to create an intense, ominous tone of rhythmic sound. With the use of these three devices, pictures are painted in the minds of readers, and characters are both directly and indirectly developed to enhance the story. Often in this epic poem, courage is expanded upon and interpreted in different ways with the use of these tactics.