Ironic In Beowulf

A traditional epic poem is a long, serious narrative that tells of a heroic tale and events that are significant to the poet’s culture, these events typically influence the poems. Epic poems aren’t strictly meant to rhyme in every sentence, or even rhyme at all, Beowulf has some sentences that together, but for the most part they’re non-rhyming. In the epic poem titled Beowulf, by The Beowulf Poet and translated by Burton Raffel, various forms of rhetoric are used to tell the story.

The first stanza of the poem starts off with an allusion, making a reference to the Bible. “…Conceived by a pair of those monsters born of Cain, murderous creatures banished by God, punished forever for the crime of Abel’s death” (Beowulf). Allusions are used to

give the reader a greater understanding of the piece if literature they are reading. Most allusions are subtly added in and are only truly understood if the reader catches the reference. “…In Herot, when the night hid him, he never dared to touch king Hrothgar’s glorious throne…” (Beowulf). Grendel, being the son of a she-wolf, was not allowed to lay a hand on Hrothgar’s throne because royals are seen as Gods chosen people, this is another allusion that looks into the Christian faith and shows how strong Christianity influenced the Beowulf poet.
Another literary device that the poet uses is alliteration. Alliteration is the repetitive occurrence of a letter or sound, this is seen in line 238 of the poem Beowulf, “…Up from his swampland, sliding sliently…”