LITERATURE QUESTIONS
EARLY BRITISH LITERATURE
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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It is a poem about terrible monsters and dragons.
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It is a long poem that tells a story about a legendary hero.
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It tells about real events and real people of long ago.
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It was not written down at first but told by storytellers.
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Detailed explanation-1: -Beowulf is considered an epic poem in that the main character is a hero who travels great distances to prove his strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts. The poem begins in medias res or simply, “in the middle of things", a characteristic of the epics of antiquity.
Detailed explanation-2: -Beowulf is a heroic poem, considered the highest achievement of Old English literature and the earliest European vernacular epic. It deals with events of the early 6th century CE and is believed to have been composed between 700 and 750.
Detailed explanation-3: -Beowulf is an epic hero of the Anglo-Saxon time period because he showed friendship, loyalty, bravery, and shared a common belief about the afterlife. He showed friendship by coming to aid his kin and long time friend of his father’s.
Detailed explanation-4: -The story itself has a powerful appeal, with the tension of the fights with the monsters, the poignancy of Beowulf’s death and the relationships between the characters. The poem’s language is also beautifully lyrical, with evocative descriptions of the mead hall, Beowulf’s sea journeys and the dragon’s treasure hoard.