We Begin With a Loss

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We Begin With a Loss

• Beowulf was part of an oral tradition
• Few written records
• 19th century
• Badly burned
• We may never know how it really goes
• Understanding lost
• Oral tradition lost
• Missing text

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Heaneys Translation

• Various authors tried translating Beowulf
• Heaney (2000)
• Fairly faithful
• Readable
• Heaney initially struggled to translate the poem
• He still doesnt speak/read Old English

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Heaneys Translation, Continued

• He noticed the presence of Anglo-Saxon traditions
  in his poetry
• Fascinated by linguistic bleed-over
• Between Old English and contemporary language
• Irish / English relationships
• Theorized that precise language changes, but that
  meaning and feeling remain unchanged
• Attacked the work again and found success

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Breaking Down the Poem

• Heaney has a prejudice for forthright delivery.
• You can see this in the way he captures the Old
  English Poets voice
• Even when the language is flowery, the voice is
  direct
• Readers appreciate this approach because Heaney
  makes challenging passages a bit easier

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Poetry Terms!

• Kenning A combination of two or more words that
  can be substituted for an original term
• One of the two words (the base word) relates to
  the other word in a way that allows the new term
  to replace the old one
• For example, ocean whale road whale-road
• Human body bones held together bone-house
• Other kennings can have many words what do you
  think sleep of the sword replaces?

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Poetry Terms!

• Alliteration Refers to the repetition of a
  vowel or consonant sound (not necessarily the
  letter itself) in the beginning of each word in a
  series
• It can only occur at the beginning of a word
• We have numerous examples of this!

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Analyze a Bit of Alliteration!

• There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many
  tribes.
• as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
• the path to power among people everywhere.

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Poetry Terms!

• Assonance and consonance also refer to repeated
  sounds in a string of words
• Assonance refers to a repeated vowel sound
• Consonance refers to a repeated consonant sound
• Unlike alliteration, consonance and assonance can
  occur anywhere within a word beginning, middle,
  or end!

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Poetry Terms

• Enjambment refers to a sentence in a poem that
  continues over multiple lines
• He was well-regarded and ruled the Danes
• For a long time after his father took leave
• Of his life on Earth. And then his heir

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Poetry Terms

• Meter refers to the rhythmic pattern of a line of
  poetry
• Syllables form the basic rhythmic units of poetry
• The various groups of stressed or unstressed
  syllables form feet.
• Types of meter are defined by the number and
  nature of syllables in a given line

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Major Types of Feet

• Youll run into four common feet
• Iamb Unstressed/Stressed (Trapeze)
• Trochee Stressed/Unstressed (Hazel)
• Anapest Unstressed/Unstressed/Stressed (ex Dr.
  Seuss)
• Dactyl Stressed/Unstressed/Unstressed
  (Marmalade)
• The analysis of the rhythmic and linguistic
  features of a poem is called scansion.
• Finally, the study of the elements of language
  that contribute to rhythmic and acoustic effects
  in poetry is called prosody.