Examples Of Literary Devices In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Literary Device in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Literary devices are linguistic techniques that are used to produce specific effects on a story. There are several different literary devices, with most widely known examples being similes and metaphors, and all good literature includes examples of literary devices. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a tale about an honorable knight who courageously stands up for his king, even though he risks his life in doing so. There are countless examples of literary devices in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, especially alliteration, caesura, and symbolism. The most prominent example of a literary device found throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is alliteration. Alliteration is a literary device in which the words in a succession begin with the same beginning sound. It helps making reading more enjoyable, and it helps the reader remember what he or she is reading. There is a myriad of alliteration found throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a few examples being line 59 saying, “With the New Year so young it still yawned and stretched”, line 109 stating, “Good Sir Gawain is seated by Guinevere”, and line 301 saying, “Flustered at first, now totally foxed”, among multiple more examples (728-733). …show more content…
Caesura is a pause somewhere in the middle of a verse. It is usually used for rhetorical effect. Like alliteration, there are multiple examples of caesura in the text. An example includes line 1134 that reads “The lord of that land was by no means last” followed by like 1135 that reads “to be rigger out for riding with the rest of his men”, which coincides with the punctuation of the lines (751). Not all examples of caesura coincide with the punctuation, and in many examples of literature it is denoted by a