Examples of alliteration, epithets, hyperbole, kennings,
            and litotes occur throughout the Old English epic poem Beowulf, and
            often many of these traits appear together.  Notice, for instance, how many of these
            traits appear in the following passage, which describes God’s punishment of Cain for
            murdering his brother Abel:
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. . . For the killing of
            Abel
The Eternal Lord had exacted a
            price:
Cain got no good from committing that murder . . . .
            (107-09; Seamus Heaney
            translation)
Alliteration,
            which generally involves the repetition of initial consonant sounds, appears, for
            instance in the final quoted line, especially in the words “Cain”
            and “committing” and in the phrase “got no
            good.” Alliteration is by far the most common strylistic trait of
            Old English verse.
An epithet,
            in which a person is identified and defined by some quality or trait, appears in the
            phrase “Eternal Lord,” which is more precisely descriptive than “God” would have
            been.
Litotes is defined at
            dictionary.com as follows:
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understatement, especially that in which an
            affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in “not bad at
            all.”
Litotes often involves
            irony, and thus the statement that “Cain got no good from committing that murder” is a
            perfect example of this stylistic trait. It would be hard to think of a better example
            of ironic understatement.
A fine example of a
            kenning, or a complex metaphor, usually linking two nouns,
            occurs when the poet reports Beowulf’s plan “to sail the swan’s road” in order to help
            the beleaguered Danes (200). Rather than saying “sail the ocean,” the poet uses the term
            “swan’s road,” implying that Beowulf’s journal will be easy, graceful, and
            untroubled.
Hyperbole, or
            exaggeration for emphasis, is less obviously evident in Beowulf
            than the other traits already discussed, although perhaps there is a bit of hyperbole
            when the poet reports that Grendel was able to grab and kill “thirty men” during his
            initial raid on Heorot and carry their corpses back to his lair (122-25). If the detail
            is taken literally, then Grendel is both enormously strong and enormously large (a kind
            of early medieval King Kong). The fact that he is later able to fit himself inside the
            hall suggests that the poet may be engaging here in a bit of hyperbole, although some
            other explanation may also account for this phrasing.
 
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