Beowulf is the best known example of Old English literature.
We are told that, much like the works of Shakespeare, the piece stood out
against other works of the same era because the creativity in its language.
Linguistics and language in general are not my strong points, so I won’t
attempt a pretentious analysis, but an excellent edition of the Radio 4
programme “In Our Time” explained that there were numerous phrases and words
that were unique to the poem. Suffice to say that I will take the learned
expert’s word for this fact for the time being. It made me think about the
power of words. (listen to the radio show/podcast here) 
