The style of BeowulfA consideration of the stylistic characteristics of the classic poem Beowulf involves a study of poetic verse, vocabulary, alliteration, litotes, simile , Kennings, variation and double meaning or ambiguity. The poetic conventions used by this poet include two half lines in each line, separated by a caesura or pause. The half-verses are joined by the oral stress of the alliterative words in the half-verses, both consonant and vowel (Tharaud 34). “At least one of the two stressed words in the first half-line, and usually both, begin with the same sound as the first stressed word in the second half-line” (Donaldson 67). When a word was stressed in the first half-line, its alliterative counterpart was stressed in the next half-line; the words might complement each other, such as holy/heaven or sin/enemy, or they might contrast with each other such as happy/unhappy or warm/winter.Oft Scyld Scefing sceapena preatummonegum maegpum meodo-setla ofteah (4-5)The repetition of the sound “s” in line 4 and the “m” sound in line 5 illustrate alliteration, and this occurs throughout the poem, providing the listener with what the rhyme of modern poetry provides: an aesthetic sense of rightness or pleasure. The vocabulary of the poem is notable in several ways. First, about a third of the vocabulary is made up of compound words. For the concept of "sea" there are 50 different compounds; similarly there are 50 compounds for the concept of “a battle”; and 30 words for "king" (Chickering 5). It is truly astonishing that in this poem of about 3000 lines there are 4000 vocabulary items......half of the paper......as it involved a study of poetic verse, vocabulary, alliteration, litotes , of simile, kennings, variation and double meaning or ambiguity. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chickering, Howell D.. Beowulf A dual-Language Edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. Donaldson, E. Talbot. "Old English Prosody and Caedmon's Hymn." Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation, edited by Joseph F. Tuso. New York, WWNorton and Co.: 1975.Magoun, Frances P. “Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry.” In The Beowulf Poet, edited by Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Tharaud, Barry. "Anglo-Saxon Language and Traditions in Beowulf." In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1998.