Repetition & Refrain
Epizeuxis
Repeating a word immediately, with nothing in between: 'words, words, words.' The bare repetition reads as feeling too strong for grammar — grief, rage, or emphasis. The bluntest repetition device.
"O horror, horror, horror!" — Macbeth
Don't confuse it with Diacope. Diacope repeats with a word or two intervening ("O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain"); epizeuxis allows no gap.
In the Reader — 10 excerpts
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
The horror! The horror!
The bull was squared on all four feet to be killed, and Romero killed directly below us. He killed not as he had been forced to by the last bull, but as he wanted
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
…to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
You do not do, you do not do
Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.
Travels with
Devices that share a passage with epizeuxis most often — company reveals character.
Antithesis 3 Paradox 3 Polysyndeton 3 Anaphora 3 Simile 3
The rest of the family
Anaphora Epistrophe Symploce Epanalepsis Anadiplosis Gradatio / Climax Diacope Conduplicatio Polyptoton