Beowulf Stylistic Analysis

Alliteration is also seen where a number of words occur close together and have the first same constant sound. In lines 700-702, ‘then out of the night came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift; the hall guards were slack asleep at their posts. This therefore implies that the sound ‘s’ has been used so as to create a certain pattern in the flow in the book. Allusion which is a reference to an idea, person or place and that relates to a certain culture, politics or even literature. In lines 105-108 ‘in misery among the banished monsters, Cain’s clan whom the creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts. With the imagery created we can tell that Polonius body is probably decaying since worms are decomposers.

In the lines ‘they flattered me like a dog and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black one were there’ brings out the animal image of a dog and how it’s being treated as a pet hence making it happy. This keeps the dog calm and diverts its attention and in the same way his daughters petted him as dog so that they would remain in good terms and therefore would create a distraction whereas in real sense their aim was to inherit his property. LEER ‘Natures above art in that respect. There’s your press money. Their destination Canterbury is a symbol of Heaven hence this creates a comparison within the readers mind. In the nun’s priest’s tale, a farm owned by a widow whereby an arrogant rooster who is very boastful of his appearance lives and this takes a turn on him as it causes distraction and therefore lands him in the hands of a fox.

The fox is also obsessed by the need to taunt his image and therefore loses the catch. The pride depicted by the animals I followed by a fall hence allegory being used as a style. In the pardoners tale the old man who directs the three men to find death is an allegory for death or deaths messenger. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare… the statement brings an extended metaphor and therefore uses the flea in the argument as the flea has already bitten the poet and his lover to be drinking blood from both their bodies making their blood to mingle. John Donne the good morrow There is use of rhetorical questions such as in line 4 ‘do you know what/ think we did before we met? The questions are used to raise eyebrows and make the reader to think outside the box so as to come to terms with the flow of the poem and maybe link the question asked to the plot of the poem.