RRhetoric
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Repetition & Refrain

Epistrophe

eh-PIS-truh-fee / ɪˈpɪstrəfi

Ending several clauses or sentences in a row with the same word or phrase. Where anaphora repeats the start, epistrophe repeats the finish, so each sentence lands on the same word with more force.

"…government of the people, by the people, for the people" — Lincoln

Don't confuse it with Anaphora, Epanalepsis. Anaphora repeats at beginnings; epanalepsis repeats a clause's opening word at its own end.

Drill this device — 4 excerptsForge one yourself →

In the Reader — 4 excerpts

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.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground · open the passage →
Books are well written, or badly written.
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray · open the passage →
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
— Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream speech · open the passage →
the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims.
— Toni Morrison, Beloved · open the passage →

Travels with

Devices that share a passage with epistrophe most often — company reveals character.

Anaphora 4 Paradox 3

The rest of the family

Anaphora Symploce Epanalepsis Anadiplosis Gradatio / Climax Epizeuxis Diacope Conduplicatio Polyptoton