| A | B |
|---|
| epic taunt | Upbraiding language; bitter or sarcastic reproach; insulting invective |
| epic feast | a large, elaborately prepared meal, usually for many persons and often accompanied by entertainment; a banquet |
| arete | "goodness" or "excellence" of any kind; bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function; the act of living up to one's full potential |
| bard | poet; a repository of histories, stories, legends, songs and poetry of his people |
| comitatus | promise to reward loyal service; an honor code between a king and his thanes, established through the exchange of gifts for the thanes' oaths of loyalty and protection |
| hubris | excessive pride displayed by a character and often taking the form of a boastful comparison of the self to the divine, the gods, or other higher powers--often also resulting in harsh punishment |
| epic simile | a poetical or imaginative comparison; imagery is provided through extended epic similes |
| epithet | an adjective or other descriptive phrase that is regularly used to characterize a person, place, or thing |
| alliteration | the repetition of stressed sounds, particularly consonants from the beginning of words or syllables |
| allusion | a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature |
| caesura | a grammatical pause or break in a line of poetry (like a question mark), usually near the middle of the line |
| enjambment | the continuation of a sentence form one line or couplet into the next and derives from the French verb 'to straddle' |
| foil | a character in a play who sets off the main character or other characters by comparison |
| kenning | a figurative, usually compound expression used in place of a name or noun, especially in Old English and Old Norse poetry; for example, storm of swords is a kenning for battle |
| motif | a recurring object, concept, or structure in a work of literature; a motif may also be two contrasting elements in a work, such as good and evil |
| metaphor | a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in "a sea of troubles" or "All the world's a stage" Shakespeare |
| personification | giving human traits to nonhuman or abstract things |
| wyrd | fate |
| wergild | practice of paying a slain man’s family to atone for the deed and prevent them from taking revenge against manslayer |
| maxim | short, concise statement, usually drawn from experience or inculcating some practical advice |
| Anglo Saxon boast | A boast about what a person (usually a warrior) would do in the future to demonstrate loyalty to the lord or king |
| litote | figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite |
| elegy | A sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person |
