II ENGLISH CLASSTEST            2ND TERM
The extract is taken from the epic poem Beowulf. It consists of three sections which deal with the fight between Beowulf and Grendel.
It is a narrative text organized into couplets and mainly focuses on Beowulf's strength and courage.
The intelligent reader can understand the language of the extract is not the original version, but is a contemporary rendering of an epic poem written in Old English. Old English was a German dialect and today it could not be understood so the present version is a translation.
The text opens with immediate reference to the creature who is in centre of the first sentence: an inversion of the ordinary words order is used. The function of alliteration of sound "b" i used to underline Grendel's voracity and his desire to eat men.Immediatly the intelligent reader understands the narrative strategy of the composer. The narrator wants to create Beowulf as a sort of a single personality, not the one of an ordinary man.
In addition, expressions like" in any man on the face of the   earth"underlines Beowulf's peculiar strength and might, suggested also by the alliteration of sound" ha" to underline the key word "harder"(comparative form). Beowulf rapresents goodness, while Grendel stands for evil, that is why he is called "the captain of evil".The narrator use kenning( v,749) to describe Grendel, and the same thing can be found in 802 lines with "denon opponent"In second section alliteration of sound "st" helps to the idea of the very loyalty an courage of Beowulf's warriors.In 3th section Beowoulf's strhgth is represented by the alliteration of sound "ou"; he killed Grendel and Beowulf became a legendary hero.