Language is the way humans communicate with each other and affects details surrounding a story. It influences reactions and plot lines with the context it implies and provides a flowing string of events. Both Hamlet by Shakespeare and Beowulf by Anonymous have their own way of telling epic adventures and events, but their different usage of language shows how the poems play out in different manner. Hamlet has a more melancholy and deep tone while Beowulf is enthusiastic and filled with doom. The diction Hamlet uses in his conversations and soliloquies are very emotional; Beowulf's wording is descriptive in an epic way. Even though both stories use foreshadowing, Beowulf describes it in actions and Hamlet conveys it during dialog. Language can control everything, whether it be for an epic hero like Beowulf or protagonist such as Hamlet.
When a message is sent, it is the tone that determines what information really comes across. Hamlet is a story about a young man who is out to get revenge and in the process, becomes angsty and depressed with other situations around him. His emotional tone is prevalent in his soliloquies and shows the vulnerable side to the protagonist. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them," questions Hamlet, determining whether to move on in his life when trouble has come his way. Beowulf, on the other hand, is exhilarated when danger looks him in the face. The narrator, encouraging, said, "Beowulf got ready, donned his war-gear, indifferent to death; his mighty, hand-forged, fine-webbed mail would soon meet with the menace underwater. It would keep the bone-cage of his body safe," and began the epic action to follow. Tone influenced how the characters felt and gave an insight to how they thought.
Hamlet is a man of many words; he goes through each problem thoroughly in his mind and even talks to himself to decide what to do next. The prolonged thoughts are displayed in a rambling yet intense use of diction. "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d, His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world," Hamlet would proclaim out of complete anger and confusion. His lengthy descriptions of his thoughts differed than the epic one of Beowulf. Beowulf wasn't afraid and faced everything that came his way without, as a hero should. "Grendel is no braver, no stronger than I am! I could kill him with my sword; I shall not, easy as it would be," he said, showing his defying words that gave confidence instead of fear. Words make or break whether a character is as strong as a hero or an average person.
Foreshadowing can give away a story with subtle hints and lead to the climax of the somewhat unexpected. Although Hamlet and Beowulf use it towards the idea of death, the characters' way of implying it are subtle in their own ways. Hamlet, again, plays everything out in soliloquies and secret plans for revenge. Hamlet basically told the end of the poem when he said, "Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift, As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge." His anger toward the situation and his language pertain to later events and how it could result in other acts of hate. Beowulf foreshadows death with a funeral: "They stretched their beloved lord in his boat, laid out by the mast, amidships, the great ring-giver. Far-fetched treasures were piled upon him, and precious gear." Having a prescience of the events that are lay ahead determine what will be the result in the protagonist's journey---good or bad.
Every element involved in language develops the characters and begins a chain reaction in the making of a story. Language is the beginning to any kind of storytelling and can shape a person into an epic hero or a supporting role. In Hamlet, the saddening tone, wordy diction, and foreshadowing in dialect form give Hamlet the role as a typical young man facing adversity. He is a mixed up guy trying to face the problems as best he can. Beowulf, on the other hand, shows great strength and bravery in the hero of Beowulf, within the same elements. The parts of language make up a whole which, in turn, can make a man out of a boy or a boy out of a man.
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