English 12 / Unit 1: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Literature
1.2 Beowulf: Style and Sound
Notes
Beowulf is an Old English epic of about 3,000 lines, set in Scandinavia. Beowulf, a prince of the Geats, fights Grendel, Grendel's mother, and finally a dragon.
- Alliteration: repeated beginning consonant sounds inside a line, such as "grim and greedy, the gray monster gripped them."
- Caesura: a strong pause in the middle of a line. Old English lines are split into two halves by it.
- Kenning: a compound metaphor that renames something, such as whale-road (the sea) or bone-house (the body).
- Translations such as Gummere's (1910) open with "Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings / of spear-armed Danes," calling the audience to listen. The compounds "people-kings" and "spear-armed" show the poem's love of compound words.
Practice
What is a kenning?
Kennings such as "whale-road" for the sea are poetic compounds.
In the line "The sailors crossed the swan-road at dawn," what does "swan-road" most likely refer to?
Like "whale-road," "swan-road" is a kenning for the sea.
Which line uses alliteration most clearly?
The repeated g sound at the start of several stressed words is alliteration.
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