The story of Beowulf reflects the Anglo Saxon values through aspects of the theme. Some examples of the cultural traits presented are when the stories elaborate adventures take unexpected turns. These reflect this societies sense of creativity and show the entertainment value of story telling. Beowulf is full of exaggerations and mystical creatures that put heroic characters in danger. Anglo Saxon people tell these tall tails to portray an idealistic warrior figure.
Figurative language commonly used in Beowulf is alliteration, which pairs similar sounding words in the same phrase."and stealthy night-shapes came stealing forth" (650) the S sound in stealthy, shapes and stealing create a rhythm in the flow of the word. This use appears frequently throughout the story.
Another literary concept that is also used often. "He was desperate to flee to is den and hide with the devils litter," (754) When he describes the situation as "devils litter" this compares the feeling to being bad enough to want to hide away with the devils children, like hell.
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