Correction of class test II

This test is an extract from the epic poem “Beowulf”. The extract was translated into modern English, because the original poem was written in Old English, a mixture of German dialects, that is hard to comprehend.

In the first stanza, from line 738 to line 744, the writer provides Grendel's characterization.

The intelligent reader can understand Grendel's velocity and silence reading lines 738-739: the repetition of sound “s” (“struck”, “suddenly”, “started”) and the use of short and action verbs suggest an idea of Grendel's speed: dangerous and silent.

The intelligent reader can also understand Grendel's voracity by the words “bit”,”bone”,”bolted”, which remind the word “blood”, also placed at the end of the same line, and the words describe the monster's cruelty, too.

The remaining part of the first stanza helps the intelligent reader to understand Beowulf's character.

At line 747, the author highlights Beowulf's attention to every suspect sound or movement and, in the next lines, he highlights the hero's strength, because Grendel “find himself in an handgrip harder than anything he had ever encountered in any man on the face of the earth”. Also, the expression “on the face of the earth” focuses the attention on the monster is powerless against the hero's strength. This is described in lines 752-753 with the expression “he could not escape”.

In the second stanza, the writer underlines his soldier's capacity to defend their lord but still not enough to defeat the monster, because “there was something they could not have known at the time, that not blade on earth, no blacksmith's art could ever damage their demon opponent”. The use of the adjective “demon” helps the intelligent reader to better understand Grendel's nature and he can also make some mind images about Grendel's figure.

In the last stanza, Grendel is defeated by Beowulf and sent back to his desolate lair. In this stanza, you can understand where Grendel lives: the use of “fen banks” and “desolate” underlines better Grendel's mistery.

Notes: teacher's analysis

Beowulf and Grendel are the protagonist of the scene which is the object of analysis of the present extract. Apparently, they seem to be given the same level of importance, but that's not true. You can see it even from the number of lines devoted to Grendel: the narrator is carefully showing the listener all of the monster's attitudes, motion and behaviour.

The language used to have the audience follow the threat of the story resorts to different stylistic choice. The first of one is the use of an inversion in the ordinary word order. The intention is to put the word “creature” into a central focus so that the listener may well understand the real protagonist of the narration.

“Creature” is an interesting semantic choice that is apparently contradictory with Grendel's monstruous nature. The effect is paradoxically to involve a certain affection in the listener reader. Indeed evident existence of which epic poetry is a “narrative projection” that's not simply consists of Good but for Good to be recognized it must be set against Evil. This explains for the narrator to draw the attention mainly to the monster. The qualities or features the narrator focuses the attention on are the tipical ones of the predator: the first element the listener comes across in the scene is Grendel's ability in having immediate reflexes underlined and highlighted by the alliterative sound “s” in “struck” and “started”. In addition, it must be said that alliteration is a conditio sine qua non for the survival and life of Anglo-Saxon epic poetry: the mains through which it can be handed down orally. It goes without saying that alliteration binds words together thus allowing the scoop the composer to remember it.

Grendel's lack of hesitation is visible and perceptible even from the word order that puts “nor” together with “keep him waiting”. The idea of the immediate instinctive voracity is suggested by line 3 where short verbs are used to convey the idea of Grendel's speedy attack. Not only he's the nature of the monster predator suggested on the rational level. It is also recreated on the sound level. Alliteration is insisted along the whole extract to reinforce the idea of a faithful creature that has no pity because he acts on an instinctive principle which is the one of sewage animals. You can see it clearly at line 741 where one's more alliteration recreates the famelic action of a monster whose pleasure and fullness depend on the slaughter of the prey. “Blood” and “bone” are just upon to visually suggest the result of an human being reduced to pieces.

Punctuation place a relevant function to insuggesting the tipical motion of a predator's attack reinforced by the labial sound of “b” that implies short brakes in the telling. The result is dramatic and significantly you can see it at line 743 where the different line length underlines “utterly lifeless”. Again alliteration of the liquid sound and elliptical sentences bring to surface all the results of Grendel's violence. Sinecdoc of “hand and foot” makes almost visible the result of Grendel's energy and voracity.