the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words
What is alliteration?
100
first murderer
Who is Cain?
100
a kind of Asia Minor who was granted a wish to turn into gold everything he touched
Who is Midas?
100
when an author borrows a word or a phrase from another work of literature, history, religion, art, or other well-known event
What is an allusion?
100
first surviving work in English
What is Beowulf?
200
vivid descriptive phrases or compound words, metaphorical in meaning, used to describe common people or things in A.S. poetry
What is a kenning?
200
the disaster associated with Noah
What is a flood?
200
opened a box, a gift from the gods, full of all the evils of the world
Who is Pandora?
200
a phrase or sentence that is overused
What is a cliche?
200
The vernacular during the Anglo-Saxon era
What is Old English?
300
a break or pause in the middle of a line of poetry to preserve rhythm
What is caesura?
300
when God created the world in seven days in Genesis
What is the story of creation?
300
another name for Zeus in Roman mythology
Who is Jove?
300
the use of stock phrases, like in Beowulf to fulfill the metrical pattern; a standard tool of an oral poet
What are formulas?
300
Germanic tribes whose languages formed the basis of Old English
Who are the Anglo-Saxons?
400
The reason why poets used so much alliteration in Old English poetry
What is a memory device?
400
When a serpent came to Eve and tempted her to eat forbidden fruit
What is the fall?
400
a deceitful man who stole and connived against the gods by revealing their secrets; punished by Zeus to eternally push a rock up a mountain
Who is Sisyphus?
400
the restatement of a concept or term using different words-"Beowulf spoke, the son of Ectheow"
What is variation?
400
the Anglo-Saxon belief that the course of one's life was determined by fate
What is fatalism?
500
The average number of beats per line in Beowulf
What is four?
500
ordered to sacrifice his only son
Who is Abraham?
500
refers to a person who makes a choice between two hard decision where the person can fall prey to one or the other
What is "between Scylla and Charybdis"
500
Beowulf, like all Old English poetry, is written in alliterative verse, a verse form that uses alliteration as one of the major organizing principles of a poetric line.
What is versification?
500
the reason why Beowulf was passed down orally for hundreds of years before it was finally written down
What is there was no written alphabet conducive to long epic poems?