Beowulf Essay - Kenwood Academy



MLA Format for the Beowulf Essay

MLA stands for Modern Language Association. It is the most common standardized style format that is used in English and other humanities papers. You will be required to write all of your papers in this format this year. You will most likely be required to write in this format in college.

General guidelines for MLA format:

• Use 8.5” x 11” white paper

• Double-space the entire paper (no extra space between paragraphs)

• Indent paragraphs one tab space

• Leave only one space after punctuation marks

• Times New Roman font

• 12 point sized font

• Use 1” margins for the top, bottom, left and right sides of the paper

• Italicize the title of a poem

For in-text citations:

Since the author of Beowulf is unknown, we will use the title of the poem instead of the name of the author in our in-text citations (note: Seamus Heaney is not the author, he is the translator). Any time you use a quote from the poem in your essay, you will have to give credit to the text. You do that by putting quotation marks around the words you use from the poem and by citing the part of the poem you’re using.

Your in-text citation will look like this: (title of poem page number) or (Beowulf 101)

This citation comes after the quote, for example:

“Beowulf got ready, donned his war-gear, indifferent to death; his mighty, hand-forged, fine-webbed mail would soon meet with the menace underwater” (Beowulf 101).

Rules: The title of the poem should always be in italics, you should not put a comma between the title and the page number and you should not write “page” the punctuation of the quote will come AFTER the citation unless it is an exclamation point (!) or a question mark (?).

QUOTATION INTEGRATION/SET- UP AND LEAD-INS

One of the main goals in writing a literary analysis paper is to prove that you can use quotes from the text and from experts to support your own ideas about the text.

• You cannot just write and cite a quote without a lead-in.

• A lead-in sets up the quote so the reader of your essay knows who is saying the quote and/or what event is happening when the quote is being used.

Quote Integration Example:

After (character) discovers (event), s/he says, “at least one full sentence.”(citation)

Instead of “discovers”, can use: “believes”, “reveals”, “comprehends”, “grasps”, or “recognizes”

Instead of “says”, can use: “utters”, “declares”, “articulates”, “shouts”, “demands”, “responds”, or “exclaims”

If it’s not dialogue, can use: “feels”, “senses”, “undergoes”, “suffers”, “becomes”, “transforms”, or “develops”

Instead of “after”, can use: “because”, “since”, “before”, “following”, or “while” (avoid “due to the fact”- it is slang)

Beowulf Example:

• While preparing to fight Grendel, Beowulf makes a formal boast promising the Danish people he will get revenge for them, he declares, “I meant to perfrom to the uttermost/ what your people wanted or perish in the attempt,/ in the fiend’s cluthches” (Beowulf 43).

• After Hrothgar discovers that Grendel’s mother attacked the Danes, he says to Beowulf, “Now help depends/ again on you and you alone./ The gap of danger where the demon waits is still unknown to you. Seek if you dare./ I will compensate you for settling the fued/ as I did the last time with lavish wealth,/ coffers of coiled gold, if you come back” (Beowulf 97).

• After Grendel’s mother discovers the death of her son, the narrator says, “But now his mother/ had sallied forth on a savage journey,/ grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge” (Beowulf 89).

QUOTATION INTEGRATION/SET- UP AND LEAD-INS

One of the main goals in writing a literary analysis paper is to prove that you can use quotes from the text and from experts to support your own ideas about the text.

• You cannot just write and cite a quote without a lead-in.

• A lead-in sets up the quote so the reader of your essay knows who is saying the quote and/or what event is happening when the quote is being used.

Quote Integration Example:

After (character) discovers (event), s/he says, “at least one full sentence.”(citation)

Instead of “discovers”, can use: “believes”, “reveals”, “comprehends”, “grasps”, or “recognizes”

Instead of “says”, can use: “utters”, “declares”, “articulates”, “shouts”, “demands”, “responds”, or “exclaims”

If it’s not dialogue, can use: “feels”, “senses”, “undergoes”, “suffers”, “becomes”, “transforms”, or “develops”

Instead of “after”, can use: “because”, “since”, “before”, “following”, or “while” (avoid “due to the fact”- it is slang)

Beowulf Example:

• While preparing to fight Grendel, Beowulf makes a formal boast promising the Danish people he will get revenge for them, he declares, “I meant to perfrom to the uttermost/ what your people wanted or perish in the attempt,/ in the fiend’s cluthches” (Beowulf 43).

• After Hrothgar discovers that Grendel’s mother attacked the Danes, he says to Beowulf, “Now help depends/ again on you and you alone./ The gap of danger where the demon waits is still unknown to you. Seek if you dare./ I will compensate you for settling the fued/ as I did the last time with lavish wealth,/ coffers of coiled gold, if you come back” (Beowulf 97).

• After Grendel’s mother discovers the death of her son, the narrator says, “But now his mother/ had sallied forth on a savage journey,/ grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge” (Beowulf 89).

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download