Personification In Beowulf Essay

Many of us have heard of the great Beowulf from the epic poem that, was written about him in a traditional Anglo-Saxon culture around 700 A.D. This poem was then orally passed down to us through generations and generations of people re-telling the poem while others remembered to pass on the tale for later generations. The Anglo-Saxon’s used literary devices such as, kenning, alliteration, and personification to not only get the audience’s attention but, to make sure they remembered for the generations to come.

Firstly, kenning is used several different times on each page. Kennings are very rare to find in modern day books, many were used in Old English poetry. An author would create new compound sentences or phrases to refer to different objects, places, and people.

This is very helpful to us in Beowulf because there are medieval parts where sea beasts, giants, and dragons appear. In order to understand these better and to simply remember them similar attributes of the sea beasts are matched with human attributes for us to connect the newer idea to an already known idea. The author of Beowulf gives us a phenomenal example of this when he describes the monsters at the bottom of the sea and says they are “vengeful creatures, seated to banquet at bottom of sea.” Correlating the hungry sea creatures to humans ready for a meal. Personification can be found in many modern pieces of writing but may not be as helpful for us as it was in the epic poem Beowulf.

Beowulf may have been a tough read because of the Old English that was used in the 700’s. By having literary devices such as kenning, alliteration, personification, and many more found throughout the book, we were able to use context clues and outside resources to understand the epic. We followed Beowulf through his journey and learned about his heroicness and how he fits the characteristics of the epic hero in the Anglo-Saxon