16th Century Part I: 1. Name three of the Germanic tribes that brought to England the dialects that make up the basis of the language we now call Old English. The Germanic tribes that brought the dialects were the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. 2. Give an example from Beowulf of three of the following poetic devices: alliteration, the kenning, variation (repetition of appositives), or the litote (understatement). There are several examples of alliteration in lines 3079-3084, “Nothing we advised could ever convince the prince we loved, our land’s guardian, not to vex the custodian of the gold, let him lie where he was long accustomed, lurk there under earth until the end of the world. He held to his high destiny.” I found lines 427-429 to be a good use of the caesura, “And so, my request, O king of Bright-Danes, dear prince of the Shieldings, friend of the people and their ring of defense”. The author used the kenning several times in the sentence on lines 647-651, “He realized that the demon was going to descend on the hall, that he had plotted all day, from dawn-light until darkness gathered again over the world and stealthy night-shapes came stealing forth under the cloud-murk.” He used dawn-light to mean morning or dusk, night-shapes to mean demons, and cloud-murk to mean fog. 3. Name three epic conventions and tell in what way each is used in Beowulf. Beowulf certainly consist of an epic journey by which Beowulf travels by sea from southern Sweden, home of the Geats, to Zealand, home of the Danes. It involves single-handed combat, “I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of the broad shield, the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand is how it will be,” lines 436-439. It also involved someone who ... ... middle of paper ... ...rstanding it. He goes on to describe about how the author tells of the dragon, and he shows great enthusiasm and excitement about the way the author chose to do so. Mr. Heaney was offered to translate Beowulf in the 1980’s, and he accepted. His excitement soon turned into disenchantment due to the difficult task and slow process of the translation. He took a break from the job and thought about quitting, but he soon went back. By using some of his Irish background, he was able to translate the words that used symbols we no longer use by noticing how the word had evolved. He gives a description and examples of why he sometimes does not follow the rules that the original author used when writing the poem. Bibliography: Heaney, Seamus. “Seamus Heaney on Beowulf and His Verse Translation.” http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/beowulf/ Norton Topics Online.
Frank, Roberta. “The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
The author suggests that “his hands were too > strong, the hardest blade could not help him, th... ... middle of paper ... ... m hilde-deor > hearpan wynne�. In the translated edition Burton Raffel > uses a more subtle style, although alliteration can still > be easily found on every page. An example is the > description of Hrothgar playing a harp and how he “stroked > its silvery strings�
Heaney, Seamus. “Beowulf: The Poem” Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: W.W. Norton &Company Ltd. 2001. ix-xxx. Print.
There is not unanimity among Beowulf translators concerning all parts of the text, but there is little divergence from a single, uniform translation of the poem. Herein are discussed some passages which translators might show disagreement about because of the lack of clarity or missing fragments of text or abundance of synonyms or ambiguous referents.
Robinson, Fred C. “Apposed Word Meanings and Religious Perspectives.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
The Beowulf poem uses literary devices and descriptive language that give the audience a progressive form of literature. Kennings are used throughout the story of Beowulf when describing characters or settings. They describe persons/objects in a highly figurative way instead of its common name; for example, the author
In conclusion, reading both Raffel’s and Pearson’s translations of this epic poem, Raffel’s translation of Beowulf tends to be easier and a more enjoyable text to understand and comprehend. As Pearson does make the reader interested and target the main points by somewhat explaining with detail, Raffel writes with a more vivid style and provides more Literal elements to give the reader a better understanding of
Ordinarily, Native American tribes were separated by ethno-linguistic groups. The immense linguistic diversity was due to the isolation and disperses of the tribes all throughout the United States. The surviving languages were not numerous and they had the widest geographic distribution that was all over the country. A few became combined with roots of other tribe languages, which evolved new languages and dialects causing a great deal of miscellany and variety. Unfortunately, a large quantity of these languages became extinct with the European contact the...
The Cherokee language is spoken today by about fourteen thousand people in western North Carolina and northeastern Oklahoma. During the period in which American natives faced European invasion, three major dialects were recognized (Power Source). These di...
Witness this army of such mass and charge/ Led by a delicate and tender prince,/ Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed/ Makes mouths at the invisible event,/ Exposing what is mortal and unsure/ To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,/ Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great/ Is not to stir without great argument,/ But greatly to find quarrel in a straw/ When honor’s at the stake. BLOCK QUOTATION
...acquired all the techniques contributed by the Anglo-Saxons. It is like that in Eastern Europe, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy.”
apostrophe, extended metaphor, and irony, in order to develop the speaker as a character. Those three poetic devices are particularly evident in lines 65-79 of"Lady Lazarus."
Edgar Allen Poe’s alliteration and repetition of words support the poem’s flow and musicality. Poe begins with the alliteration of the m sound in “merriment” and “melody” (3). The soft m sound, also known as a liquid consonant, helps to keep a quick and continuous pace for the poem. Similarly, the alliteration of the s sounds in sledges, silver, stars, and seem, emphasize the calming sounds of the bells (1-2, 6-7). The s sound helps express the soothing and comforting effects of the bells, essentially contributing to the merry tone of the poem. Furthermore, the alliteration of t...
Nevertheless, some may find that the Old English is uncomplicated and a more consistent language since with it every letter specifically and invariably relates to a single sound. Unlike the modern English there are not silent letters or phonetic inconsistencies to confuse them. Several of the commonly used words today in English have their roots in Old English. Such words as water, strong, house, earth and many more can be traced to Old English. Also at some point in the 6th Century the Old English “sk” consonant cluster changed to “sk” consequentially changing words “skield” to “shield”. This change affected all “sk” words in existence in the language at that time. Therefore, any “sk” clusters in modern English became part of the English language after the 6th Century. Followed by, around the 7th Century, a shift in vowel pronunciation took place. With this vowels began to be pronounced more to the frontal area of the mouth. Consequently, the plural of several nouns also began to have modified vowel pronunciation instead of changes in inflection. This resulted at times in revised spelling which lead to the inconsistent modern English word pairing for example goose/geese, mouse/mice or blood/bleed to name a few. Late in the 8th Century the Viking from Scandinavia began to make raids on