We will test over Beowulf tomorrow .. the notes/questions below in addition to your reading questions and knowledge of the material from your reading should be enough to make sure you are successful on the test.
- Some of the conventions of epic an epic are: long, narrative poetic form; usually based on historical facts (to some degree), includes kennings, and includes stock epithets.
- Epic heroes have super-human characteristics, are usually of noble birth, their strengths or postive qualities echo what their society most values, and their actions will determine the fate of others.
- Kennings are wordplays used to rename something ... a "whale road" would be the ocean .. a "fire-spitting terror" would be a dragon.
- Alliteration is a poetic device where words in a series will begin with the same initial consonant sound (you can usually see this because they will often start with the same letter as well).
- Anglo-Saxon storytellers were called scops.
The remainder of the test comes from the IRQs or the excerpts in the literature book. You'll also want to know some of the details about the poem ... who wrote it? What language was it in originally? Where is it set (hint .. it's NOT set in England)? What influence did Christianity have on the poem over time?
Be sure you have read and reviewed all three major battles in the story - Grendel, Grendel's Mother, and the Dragon.
