Repetition & Refrain
Anaphora
Starting several clauses, sentences, or lines in a row with the same word or phrase. Each repeat adds pressure, and the changing endings carry the idea forward. Common in speeches because listeners feel the pattern without needing to see it.
"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields…" — Churchill
Don't confuse it with Epistrophe, Symploce. Epistrophe repeats at clause *ends*; symploce does both at once.
In the Reader — 71 excerpts
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where,
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay before me.
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or
And what I assume you shall assume,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Each day we descend one step further toward Hell,
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on …
I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.
The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us.
I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was Papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them.
She had wanted to see life, and fortune had favoured her in a manner which now, as she looked about her, struck her as almost grotesque. The dry staring fact was that she had a great deal of money.
Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry.
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Travels with
Devices that share a passage with anaphora most often — company reveals character.
Metaphor 27 Polysyndeton 24 Asyndeton 21 Antithesis 20 Parallelism 20 Parataxis 19 Personification 18 Litotes 17
The rest of the family
Epistrophe Symploce Epanalepsis Anadiplosis Gradatio / Climax Epizeuxis Diacope Conduplicatio Polyptoton