Monsters. In keeping with this idea, the monsters that Beowulf must fight in this Old English poem shape the poem’s plot and seem to represent an inhuman or alien presence in society that must be exorcised for the society’s safety. They are all outsiders, existing beyond the boundaries of human realms.

The kenning is used primarily in Anglo-Saxon poetry and is a metaphorical phrase that provides a visual for a person, place, or thing. Beowulf is loaded with kennings that offer many different phrases to represent the same thing. It is a compound of two words and words that are hyphenated.

While there was an actual dragon in the poem Beowulf, Gardner might have made him a metaphor for Grendel’s conflicting state of mind rather than an actual dragon.

Beowulf is an epic poem, or a very long piece of poetry that tells a serious story. Beowulf is allegorical because the main characters represent specific ideas or entities from the Christian faith. Grendel, for example, is an allegory for Cain, while Grendel’s mother represents Original Sin.

Simile – Beowulf comparing the raven’s singing to his own toothache, meaning it was painful 🙂 …its golden roofs can be seen a day’s march away, brighter than the sun itself. The eagle was the king of the air. …the monster managed only the merest tiny little cough.

How does Grendel’s mother welcome Beowulf? How does he reach her home? Seriously, she lunged and managed to grab him. Then, she dragged him into the depths of the water to her home.

Alliteration, is the use of repetition of initial sounds in words close to one another. In Beowulf, alliteration is the mainstay of the poem. The words, ‘Up from his swampland, sliding silently,’ allow us to imagine Grendel slipping into the hall unseen.

Those are the uses of metaphor, and this is the official definition: A word or phrase for one thing that is used to refer to another thing in order to show or suggest that they are similar An object, activity, or idea that is used as a symbol of something else

Most of us think of a metaphor as a device used in songs or poems only, and that it has nothing to do with our everyday life. In fact, all of us in our routine life speak, write, and think in metaphors. We cannot avoid them.

Here’s a tip: A dead metaphor is a cliche that has become so commonplace that the imagery has lost its power. Examples of dead metaphors include: “raining cats and dogs,” “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” and “heart of gold.”.

Metaphor is an essential figure of speech for writers of both poetry and prose. It’s important that writers construct proper metaphors so that the comparative meaning is not lost for the reader. In fact, metaphors are dependent on the understandable combination of a principal term and a secondary term.