Beowulf Characters
Beowulf Plot
Rhetorical Tools
Dove SPACE
Dove CAT
100

Good man of the Geats

Beowulf

100

How Beowulf killed Grendel

Ripped off his arm

100

Fancy word for word choice

Diction
100

SPACE stands for...

Speaker, purpose, audience, context, exigence

100

What question should you always ask during rhetorical analysis?

WHY/FOR/ON?

200

King of the Danes

Hrothgar

200

Grendel's Mother's motive for killing Aeschere

Wanted revenge; killed the man closest to Hrothgar

200

Definition of tone

The writer's attitude toward the subject

200

What is the exigence of the speech? (Don't think too hard...)

College commencement
200

"That seems the very opposite of Percy Bysshe Shelley's definition of the poet."

What type of appeal is this reference to Shelley?

Ethos/credibility

300
Does not trust Beowulf immediately

Unferth

300
A giant sword being revealed to Beowulf at the bottom of the Lake of Monsters is an example of _______.

Deus ex machina

300

The three types of appeals

Ethos, pathos, and logos

300

Characterize the speaker (name and 2+ attributes)

Rita Dove, US poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, professor of English, poet

300

What three things does Dove wish for the graduates?

Hunger, Hard Work, and Uncertainty
400

Descendants of Cain (2 answers for points)

Grendel and Grendel's Mother

400

Beowulf's purpose in going to help the Danes

Sought glory
400
Definition of asyndeton and polysyndeton, respectively
The lack of conjunctions; the excess of conjunctions
400

Characterize Dove's audience (2+ attributes)

Graduates, living in Virginia, Millennials, 2016 

400

"When you entered this university, you wanted to eat the world and all everyone else wanted you to do was to get good grades."

What rhetorical tool is at use here and for what purpose?

Juxtaposition; comparing what young people want to what life-hardened adults expect

500

Infamous former Danish king

Heremond

500

The name of the sword Unferth gives to Beowulf

Hrunting

500

Anaphora and symploce are both examples of ___________ in syntax.

Parallelism
500

What is the purpose of the speech?

Encourage graduates to keep their vitality upon entering the "real world"

500

"You cannot wait for revelation to come down upon you in a clouds of gossamer and angelic sighs; more often than not you have to seek it out."

Identify a choice Dove makes in this excerpt, then analyze why she made this choice for this audience on this occasion.

100 points for choice, 100 points for why, 100 points for for, 100 points for on, 100 points for sophistication