LITERATURE QUESTIONS
EARLY BRITISH LITERATURE
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Alliteration
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Metaphor
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Caesura (pause dividing a line by using //)
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Kenning (substitution of a name)
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Detailed explanation-1: -Some of the devices they used are assonance, alliteration, personification, kennings, similes, metaphors, variation, symbolism, caesuras, imagery, and hyperbole. All of these occur in Beowulf.
Detailed explanation-2: -Some of the kennings found in Beowulf include ‘battle-sweat’ for blood, ‘raven-harvest’ for corpses, ‘whale-road’ for the sea, and ‘sleep of the sword’ for death.
Detailed explanation-3: -Henry Sweet, a philologist and linguist specializing in Germanic languages, proposed that the name Bēowulf literally means in Old English “bee-wolf” or “bee-hunter” and that it is a kenning for “bear". Recorded instances of similar names mirror this etymology.
Detailed explanation-4: -Beowulf is full of kennings, a literary device common in Old English poems. Kennings were used to add description, richness, and meaning to the poem. The kinds of kennings in Beowulf include words to replace battle words, God, Grendel, and the sea.