Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to "Epic Poetry Lesson Six".

In this our final lesson, we're going to look at Beowulf, and how he's presented, which is why this lesson is called "Beowulf the Great Hearted King." Last lesson, we looked at Grendel, and we looked at some of the description surrounding his character.

Now we're going to look at some of the poetic techniques describing Beowulf.

You'll have a chance to explore some of them, and also create some of your own.

I hope you're ready to learn, and I hope you enjoy.

As usual for this lesson, you need three things.

You'll need something to write with, something to write on, and your brain.

Now I do recommend for this lesson that you do get a pen and paper, because you'll find it makes the final exercise much easier, rather than doing it in your head.

So if you don't have something to write with, and a piece of paper, pause the video now, and go and get some.

Now I'm going to take you through today's agenda.

First, we're going to talk about, and recap a little bit of what poetic techniques are used in epic poetry.

Then you're going to learn about something called a kenning, and why they're used in poetry.

We're going to look at how kennings are used to present the character of Beowulf, and then you're going to write your own kennings.

Then as usual at the end, there'll be a small quiz to review your learning, so you can see how much you learned today.

Your first task is to think back to the previous lessons, over what we've learned.

What can you remember, about what poetic techniques are used in epic? Now you may remember some ideas from our lessons, or you may remember some ideas about poetry in general from your English lessons.

But pause the video now, and take a moment to jot down any poetic techniques you think epic uses.

Now, I'm going to take you through four particularly Anglo-Saxon, so old English epic techniques.

You may not have all of these down, that's absolutely fine.

You might have some different ideas.

I've just chosen these four because they belong particularly to poems like Beowulf.

The first power tip technique, which comes up a lot, is the technique of alliteration.

That means when words begin with similar sounds.

"Hygelac's great-hearted kinsmen had him by the hand." For example, uses lots and lots of Hs.

You can see alliteration all the way throughout the poem.

And it's very easy to pick up, particularly when you're listening to it, rather than when you are just reading it, which of course, is why this poem was composed orally.

It was something that was meant to be heard, rather than just read.

Another technique very typical of epic poetry, is what we call epithets.

These are phrases describing an a character, which are often repeated over and over, whenever that character appears.

You might get an epithet like deep-minded, or strong-hearted, describing a particular character.

In this case, of course, these epithets describe the character of Beowulf, his personality, and the way he thinks.

And these come up regularly throughout the poem.

We also have something called formulae, or the singular formula.

Now, you might normally hear the word formula when we're talking about maths.

But this is a different kind of formula to that kind of formula.

A formula is a repeated word or phrase, something that comes up often being used more than once, often very regularly.

A common one in Beowulf is, "Son of Edgartheow." Or, "Son of Healfdene." Usually, these are describing characters.

But you can get different formula, which are long phrases that seem to appear over and over again.

Now this is important for part of the oral tradition, which, as you should remember, is about remembering poems off by heart.

It's much easier for a poet to remember things when they using repeated words or phrases regularly.

It allows them to keep track of where they are, and pause to think about the next thing that they're going to say.

Our last and most important poetic technique, using epic is called a kenning.

Now, you may never have heard of a kenning before, but they're particularly important to Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Kennings are compound words, that's words combining two words, usually using a hyphen in between them.

The examples I put below are arms-fellow, which means warrior friend, and folk-founder, meaning king.

Two words combined mean that you have a new phrase with a new meaning.

And Anglo-Saxon poetry uses these all the time.

We're going to have a look at how these are used in Beowulf.

Here's the definition of kennings, just in case you need to come back to it.

You'll see that I put the hyphen in pink.

If it doesn't have a hyphen, it can't be a kenning.

That's a really easy way to spot them.

We're going to look at several short extracts from Beowulf, and we're going to have a go at spotting kenning, and thinking about what they mean.

I'm going to do this first extract for you, so you understand what you've got to do.

This is from a description we've already read, why Grendel and Beowulf are battling together.

I'm going to read the description to you.

And as I read, there'll be some kennings.

We're going to spot them together, and think about why they're there, and what effect they have.

"Hygelac's great-hearted kinsmen had him by the hand, "and hateful to each was the breath of the other.

"A breach in the giant flesh-frame showed then, "shoulder-muscles sprang apart, "there was a snapping of tendons, bone-locks burst." Now, hopefully you remember, the best way to spot a kenning is to look for hyphens.

So that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I've highlighted all of the kennings in different colours.

We've got great-hearted, flesh-frame, shoulder-muscles, and bone-locks.

These are all compound phrases, with two words linked together.

Now let's have a think about that first one, great-hearted.

That is describing Beowulf, and it gives us the impression of him as a good man.

Great can mean good, as well as important.

So it tells us about his status, as well as his personality.

Our next kenning is describing Grendel, his flesh-frame.

And that's an interesting way of describing Grendel's body.

He's made of flesh, which makes us think perhaps he is actually vulnerable.

Similarly, we are told about his shoulder-muscles, which makes us think about the fact he's wounded, because we can see and hear the muscles tearing.

We also have finally, the bone-locks, which are his arm joints, the things that link him together, and they are breaking.

Which demonstrates Beowulf's amazing, epic strength.

Now it's your turn to look at another short extract, and think about the kennings.

In this extract, there's a description of Beowulf and his warriors going to war.

Listen carefully, and as I'm reading, think about if you can hear the kennings, as well as see them on the screen.

And then pause the video, and take a moment to write down anything that you think is a kenning in this extract.

"There was stone paving on the path "that brought the war-band on it away.

"The war-coats shone, "and the links of hard hands-locked iron sang "in their harness as they stepped along "in their gear of grim aspect going to the hall.

"Sea-wearied, they then set against the wall, "their brought shields of special temper, "and bowed to bench battle-shirts clinking, "the war-dress of warriors." Now you might have noticed a few different kennings here.

I've highlighted the ones that I've spotted, and hopefully you've got similar ones as well.

We have war starting three of them, war-coats, battle-shirts, and war-dress.

And actually those are all referring to the same thing, which is armour.

War-band, meaning a group of people, refers to the army.

Hand-locked, describing their armour, means that this armour is made by hand.

Meaning it's taken a long time to make.

And sea-wearied, means these sailors are tired from their journey.

They've had enough time on the sea.

Therefore, we have this description of a group of warriors, who were all kitted out for battle, but also are tired of sailing.

Now we're going to look at a third extract, and I want you to do two things.

I want you to find the kennings, and have a think about what they mean.

What do they represent? I'm going to read you the extract.

And again, I'd like you to listen carefully.

This extract is from very close to the beginning of the poem, where Beowulf decides that he's going to set out on his voyage to the kingdom where Frasca is suffering.

And we have the description of his decision to go, how he's going to go, and the men he chooses to go with him.

Listen carefully, and again remember that spotting a kenning is easy, when you remember there'll be a hyphen in it.

Write them down, and have a think about what you think they might mean.

"He bade a seaworthy wave-cutter "to be fitted out for him.

"The warrior king he would seek, he said, "over swans riding, that Lord of great name needing men.

"The wiser sought to dissuade him "from voyaging hardly or not at all, "though they held him dear.

"They whetted his quest-thirst, watched omens.

"The prince had already picked his men "from the folk's flower, "the fiercest among them that might be found." "With 14 men he sought sound-wood; "sea-wise Beowulf led them right down to the land's edge." Now hopefully, you were able to pick out some of the kennings, and think about what they represented.

I've highlighted the four of them in this passage.

Well done, if you found some of them.

And don't worry if you didn't get them all, or you weren't sure about what they meant.

The first kenning, wave-cutter, is a bit mysterious, until you realise that Beowulf is deciding to sail, and he's deciding to get a ship ready.

A wave-cutter is something that cuts through the waves.

So it's a ship that sails on the sea.

He's also described as having quest-thirst.

Quest, meaning some kind of mission, and thirst meaning a desire.

So in this case, a quest-thirst must mean something like a desire for adventure, or possibly Beowulf's ambition to gain his heroic reputation.

A slightly strange one, sound-wood, which could be a bit deceptive if you were thinking sound, like hearing.

However, sound also means reliable.

Therefore, Beowulf is hoping for a reliable ship to take him across the ocean.

Because, of course, see trouble is dangerous.

Finally, we have a description of Beowulf himself, as sea-wise, that tells us he might be an experienced sailor, or at least someone who's confident on a ship.

Which is a good job, because he's about to take all of these 14 men with him.

Now, we've spotted kennings, and talked about what they mean within the poem.

And I'm just going to give you some more examples to get you more familiar.

These are very typical of Anglo-Saxon kennings.

And actually, these come up in other poems, not just Beowulf.

These are some of my favourites.

We have bone-house, which means the human body.

Battle-light, which means sword.

Wave-floater, which means ship.

Hoard-guardian, which means a dragon.

Fish-home, meaning sea, and seal-bath, which also means sea.

You can tell from this, that the sea is clearly a big topic in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

And of course, hoard-guardian, something that guards a hoard of treasure, means that dragons often appear in epic poetry as well.

Battle-light, meaning sword, of course refers to the fact that you often get a lot of fighting in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

And bone-house, human body, I think is a particularly beautiful one, the idea that your body is a house, for your bones that live inside it.

Now we've looked at kennings together, and finally there's going to be a chance to write your own.

So if you've got your pen and paper ready, let's have a look at what your options are.

I have given you six different modern nouns, which of course would not appear in an Anglo-Saxon epic poem, because these are modern.

However, now you get to think about how you would phrase these if you had to write a kenning yourself.

I've done one for you, just to get you started.

I've written that school could be described as a knowledge-house.

We have the body as the bone house, the place that looks after, or houses your bones.

School is a place that contains knowledge, or where you go to gain knowledge.

So I thought that one was appropriate.

You of course, might have your own ideas, and that's absolutely fine.

In fact, I'm really hoping and get to have some fun with these, and really be creative.

Pause this slide and take some time to write your own kennings for the six nouns.

I will show you ones that I've written later, and hopefully you can even show me them on Twitter, and I'll talk a bit about how to do that later too.

Pause the video and have it go.

Well, I hope you enjoyed doing that.

And I hope you had some great ideas of your own.

I'm going to take you through what I thought these nouns could be called.

We already had the idea of school, which I said could be a knowledge house.

For teacher, me, wisdom-fountain, because of course, teachers are a source of wisdom.

Book, I put as a word-hoard.

We had the idea of a hoard, and treasure with a dragon.

And books contain words.

And I do think books are valuable.

So I wanted that to be contained within my kenning.

For mobile phone, I put message-sender.

Car, people-carrier, and TV, story-machine.

Now, hopefully yours were better than mine, and you got to have some fun with that.

And hopefully, this also showed you how kenning are created.

And in fact, it's about creating more meaning from two words, like the Anglo-Saxon poets did, all those years ago.

So to quickly recap everything we've done today.

We talked a bit about what poetic techniques are used in epic.

I told you what accounting was, and how it was used.

And we looked at three different extracts from Beowulf, showing how he's presented using kennings.

And finally, you had a chance to write your own.

As usual, at the end of this lesson, there is a little quiz for you to review your learning.

So please make sure you do that, so you can see how much you actually learned today.

This brings us to the end of our lesson, and in fact, to the end of all our lessons on epic poetry.

I really hope you've enjoyed learning about epic poetry in Beowulf with me.

Now if you're able to, please take a picture, either of your work from this lesson, or from any of our lessons, and get your parent or carer to share it with your teachers, so they can see all of the brilliant learning you've done.

And if you're able to, ask your parent or carer to take a picture of your work, and share it with Oak National on Twitter, which means I can see all of your brilliant work as well.

Well done on all your learning.

I hope you enjoyed our lessons, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your learning for today.