Terms to Know, Beowulf Exam

Beowulf Exam

Part I (Multiple Choice and Matching): Wednesday, Nov. 1

Part II (Short Answer and Essay Question): Thursday, Nov. 2

Terms/Concepts to Know:

Epic (Traits)

In Medias Res

Invocation

Verse

Deus Ex Machina

Episodic Plot Structure (episodes)

Epithets

Large Scale Setting

Allegory

Xenophobia 

Nationalism
Primary vs. Secondary Epic

Archetype

Archetypal Criticism

Archetypal Characters (know specific character types)

The Monomyth

Archetypal Symbols (know specific symbols)
Archetypal Situations (know specific situations)

Collective Unconscious 

Personal Unconscious 

Carl Jung

Joseph Campbell

Alliteration

Kenning
Litote

Caesura 

Elegy

Angleland

Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians

Germanic Language

Romance Language

Thegn

Wergild

Scop
Wyrd

Flyting

Comitatus
Anno Domini
Hwaet

Barrow (Tumulus)
Mead Hall
Mead
Cremation vs. Inhumation

Economic Migrant

Post-Migration Epic/Literature

Honor/Shame Culture

Paganism vs. Christianity
Norman Conquest
Battle of Hastings

Bede of Jarrow (The Venerable Bede)

Ecclesiastical History of the English People
The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Old English (Anglo-Saxon)

Middle English

Modern English (including Early Modern English)

Image Credit: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, "Beowulf with the Head of Grendel" (1908).