The linguopoetic use of the metonymic principle in the presentation of battle scenes in "Beowulf"

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the poetic diction function of metonymy in the original text of the old English medieval epic poem Beowulf. The study is conducted on the basis of comparison of the Beowulf text with the original ancient classical (Greek and Roman) and medieval (Germanic and Romance) epic texts. Metonymy in the language form of the Bewulf text is shown to reflect the aesthetic values of an early Germanic medieval world outlook in an epic text viewed as a complex sign (asemiotic unity).