“Beowulf and Grendel: the fight”

Analysis of the text at page 14-15

The text is extracted from the old English poem Beowulf (lines 710-717; 738-753; 804; 814-827).

It deals with the fight between Beowulf and the monster Grendel.

The lines reported have different structure and length. There are four paragraphs, each of which describes different scenes of the fight.

The first paragraph is an introduction to the following lines, presenting the settings of the scene.

The second paragraph is about the first fight between Beowulf and Grendel, in which Beowulf’s neighbour is harmed.

In the third paragraph Beowulf’s warriors work to defend their lord’s life and Grendel is fatally hurt.

In the last and fourth paragraph Grendel is driven, dead, to his desolate lair.

As regards the part of the connotative understanding of the text we can generally say that in the whole paragraph are present some enjambments, because the concepts expressed by the sentences are broken by the lines. An example is in verses 13-14-15:

“... leaving the body

utterly lifeless, eaten up

hand and foot."

Another poetic present in all the writing of this paragraph is the alliteration: the repetition of the same letter (usually a consonant) or the same syllable at the beginning of successive words or anyway in words close to each other. This particular figure of the sound is in verses:

§   2, with the repetition of the sound gr- (Grendel - greedily) with the intent of emphasizing the noise produced by Grendel in motion;

§   10, with the resumption of the sound s- (struck - suddenly - started) to highlight the cry of Grendel;

§   12, with the repetition of sound b- (Bit - bone - Bolted - blood) to mark the noises produced by Grendel in the act of devouring a man;

§   21, with the resumption of sound ha- (handgrip - harder) to highlight the strength of the close of the hero;

§   23, again with the repetition of the sound b- (bone - body) to underline the breaking of ALL the bones of the body of the monster;

§   26, with the resumption of sound w- (warriors - worked) to show off and make immediately notice the arrival of the Beowulf’s warriors;

§   27, with the repetition of sound l- (lord’s – life – lying) to mark again the presence of the warriors that fight to help and save Beowulf in danger;

§   34, with the repetition of the sound d- (damage - demon) to highlight the fact that no weapon could harm the demon of the men (Grendel).