Kennings

by Adam Huddleston

This week’s literary term may not be extremely useful to your writing, but I felt it was an interesting device to have in memory. Kennings are the use of words of imagery to substitute the proper name for something. For example, in Beowulf, blood is referred to as “battle-sweat” and the sun as a “sky candle”. I suppose if you were writing dialogue for an ancient civilization, the use of Kennings might be appropriate. I hope this helps you in your craft!