Beowulf the Strong

In Beowulf's society the men are valued the men a lot. They considered to be born warriors from birth to death. Warriors were like one of the higher ranked people in society. Great men were warriors of great armor and weapons. A warrior's ideal way was to die during combat so they could reach to their "heaven". For example Beowulf was a very powerful warrior and there were none like him. He destroyed many great sea monsters and destroyer of troll nests. "What kind of men are you who arrive rigged out for combat in coats of mail, sailing here over sea-lanes"(Heaney 237). This quote was mentioned by a watchmen meaning that warriors were always or most of the time wore armor with them so that hey could be ready to fight. That was the ideal way of Beowulf and his society.

In the epic of Beowulf they use a lot of kenning to describe objects such as armor and super natural forces such as God. Instead of using the dull word for ocean instead they used the word "whale-road"(Heaney 129). The significance of this kenning was to describe the road that Beowulf had to cross to get to Hrothgar's nation. For armor such as chain mail was described as "mail-shirts"(Heaney 321). And also for plate armor it was called "battle-dress"(Heaney 327). They also used many other titles to describe God such as "Head of the Heavens"(Heaney 183) and "Eternal Lord"(Heaney 208). The significance of using these was to describe how power God was and how he could never perish or be destroyed.

One of the many literary devices used in the story of Beowulf was alliterations. One example of one was " Then out of the night came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift"(Heaney 704). This alliteration was used to describe the night that Grendel attacked. It was a dark and scary night. They figured that Grendel would attack but they were still amazed. Grendel came out of the dark as if he was part of the darkness.