Alliteration In Beowulf

Seamus Heaney and Burton Raffel’s translations of Beowulf serve their purpose of enthralling and engaging the audience with a suspenseful story. Heaney appeals to a mature audience with his descriptive and poetic style of writing, but Burton Raffle captivates a younger audience with his short worded and concise writing style. Heaney’s use of descriptive detail is best portrayed in line 26 when he describes the death of the old king Shild. “Shild was still thriving when his time cam and he crossed over into the lord’s keeping.” Heaney uses words such as when his time came and he crossed over into the lords keeping to mean death. On the other hand Raffel describes Shild’s death in a more direct fashion on line 26. “When his time was come the old king died, still strong but called to the lord's hands.” Raffel’s writing style is evident when he says the old king died. Unlike Heaney Raffel gets straight

This explains why Heany uses more literary devices than Raffel. In line 28 Heaney uses alliteration to describe the obedience of Shild’s men. “His warrior band did what he bade them when he laid down the law among the Danes.” Heaney’s repetition of the letter “b” allows him to get the point across that Shild’s people were obedient. Although Heaney does a better job of applying literary terms to his writing Raffle still attempts to use them in his writing. In line 28 Raffel uses alliteration to show that Shild’s friends cared about him. “His comrades carried him down to the shore, bore him as their leader had asked, their lord and companion, while words could move on his tongue.” Raffle use of similar words such as bore and shore allow him to get his point of companionship across in a creative fashion. Even though Heaney has more experience with alliteration both of these writers apply the term to describe similar