Beowulf canterbury tale alagor
Beowulf-canterbury tale alagorAllegory is defined as any work of literature in which character, action, or setting represents an abstract idea or moral concept. Many authors use allegory to make their writing more meaningful than what is simply written on the paper. Allegory is a very effective way for a writer to make a point. Allegory is used in Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales to make the stories more meaningful.
There is a lot of allegory in Beowulf. Most of the characters have an allegorical meaning. For example, Wiglaf represents hope, Grendel represents evil, the thief represents greed or sin, and Hrothgar represents unity. There are also allegorical settings in Beowulf, such as the meadhall representing unity and the lake representing evil or hell. The lake is a very obvious example of allegory. The lake is the home of Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Those two characters represent the devil; therefore it seems right that their home represents hell. Also, in lines 928-941, talking about the lake.
“Over churning water and bloodstained wave.
Then for the Danes was the woe the deeper,
The sorrow sharper for Scylding earls,
When they first caught sight, on the rocky sea-cliff,
Of slaughtered �scher's severed head.
The water boiled in a bloody swirling
With seething gore as the spearmen gazed.
The trumpet sounded a martial strain;
The shield-troop halted. Their eyes beheld
The swimming forms of strange sea-dragons,
Dim serpent shapes in the watery depths,
Sea-beasts sunning on headland slopes;
Snakelike monsters that oft at sunrise
On evil errands scour the.”
This quote is very bluntly using the lake to represent hell. Using the blood and the swirling, boiling water makes the reader think hell. I think that this is a good use of allegory.
The Pardoners Tale, a story from The Canterbury Tales, uses character allegory much like the allegory used in Beowulf. In The Pardoners Tale the old man is used to represent death, the gold represents greed, and the three men represent greed and sinfulness, which is present somewhere in most people. The three men show that they represent greed and sin by trying to take all of the money that they found and also by each one trying to kill the other two so that he could get all of the gold and not have to share it. Lines 179-194 show the greed and sinful thoughts of the youngest of the three men.
“The youngest, as he ran towards the town,
Kept turning over, rolling up and down
Within his heart the beauty of those bright
New florins, saying, ‘Lord, to think I might
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