Another device that modern readers might notice is the use of litotes, which are figures of speech in which a positive statement is made by the negative of its opposite. It is a form of understatement that is none too subtle. We might say, for example, “Abraham Lincoln was not too bad a President” when we mean to convey that he was a great President. When describing Grendel’s mere (or pool), King Hrothgar says (1372) it is “Not a pleasant place!” It is, in fact, filled with horror.
Although modern works often contain poetic devices such as the simile, there are only a few similes in Beowulf. Simile often is described as a comparison between two objects, people, or ideas through the use of a comparative such as “like” or “as.” One simile occurs in line 218 when the poet tells us that the ship went over the sea “like a bird.” A more original, complex, extended simile (2444 ff.) compares the feelings of King Hrethel with those of a father whose son is on the gallows, the “likeness,” or similarity, implied by the first line.
As poetry, Beowulf is rich in meaning. Some see it as an early celebration of Christianity. Others think it extols or condemns heroic values. English novelist and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien (“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” Proceedings of the British Academy, XXII [1936], 245–95) argued that Beowulf is a balance between beginnings and endings, of youth and age, the most dominating being Beowulf’s. While the poem is of value historically, it is more interesting as a powerful work of art.
