What excerpt from Beowulf effectively demonstrates the author’s use of tone to develop Beowulf’s recklessness?


“With thrust of my sword,
the darling, I dealt them due return!”

“This was my thought, when my thanes and I
bent to the ocean and entered our boat,
that I would work the will of your people
fully, or fighting fall in death,
in fiend’s gripe fast.”

“Never to any man erst I trusted,
since I could heave up hand and shield,
this noble Dane-Hall, till now to thee.”

“Art thou that Beowulf, Breca’s rival,
who emulous swam on the open sea,
when for pride the pair of you proved the floods,
and wantonly dared in waters deep
to risk your lives?”