The Plastic Whale And The Fishes Road Analysis

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In English literature, during the time of the Anglo-Saxons, the main type of poetry used was alliterative verse. Up until the seventh century, all poetry was passed down orally using alliterative verse. These poems were used to inform the people about everything from current events, religion (namely Christianity), and the heroic tales of past battles (David, 7-8). Alliterative verse is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as being “alliteration, the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables, is a basic structural principle…” (“Alliterative”). The six features of an alliterative poem are as follows: four beat lines, a medial caesura, enjambment, alliteration that links each half-line of the poem, kennings, and litotes. These six features of alliterative verse are not only found in Old English, but in Modern English as well. The elements of alliterative poetry can be found in the following poem, The Plastic Whale and the Fishes’ Road by Rachel Hahn (Hahn). The plastic whale, plowed into the river bank;
Oars splashing and dipping, into the swirling …show more content…

Four beat lines are lines of poetry that have four stresses. Four beat lines are used in “Cædmon’s Hymn”. One such four beat line is evident in the following text: “heaven as a roof, / holy Creator;” (Cædmon 6). The beats, or stresses, in this excerpt are “heaven”, “roof”, “holy”, and “Creator”. Another example from an Old English text comes from Beowulf. The following text shows four beats, “So. The Spear-Danes / in days gone by” (“Beowulf” 1). The stressed words in this line are “Spear”, “Danes”, “days”, and “gone”. A much more modern example of a four beat line comes from the Plastic Whale and the Fishes’ Road. In this poem line two shows four beat line thusly: “Oars splashing and dipping / into swirling deep water” (Hahn 2). In this line, the beats are “splashing”, “dipping”, “swirling”, and

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