RRhetoric
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Syntax & Word Order

Hyperbaton

hy-PER-buh-ton / haɪˈpɜːrbətɒn

Breaking normal word order — object first, verb delayed, adjective after noun — so the displaced word lands with extra force. English word order is strict, so every violation is loud.

"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." — Measure for Measure

Don't confuse it with Anastrophe. Anastrophe is the mild, single-pair inversion; hyperbaton covers more violent or extended derangements.

Drill this device — 8 excerpts

In the Reader — 8 excerpts

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
— John Milton, Paradise Lost · open the passage →
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
— Thomas Jefferson (Committee of Five), Declaration of Independence · open the passage →
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,
— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus · open the passage →
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland · open the passage →
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (trans. David Wyllie) · open the passage →
He knew that the moment he allowed himself to feel to its fullness how they lived, the shame and misery of their lives, he would be swept out of himself with fear and despair.
— Richard Wright, Native Son · open the passage →
bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind.
— Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man · open the passage →
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.
— Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita · open the passage →

Travels with

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

Asyndeton 7 Passive Voice 6 Litotes 6 Anaphora 6 Parallelism 5 Synecdoche 4 Polysyndeton 4 Isocolon 4

The rest of the family

Anastrophe Periodic Sentence Cumulative (Loose) Sentence Parataxis Parenthesis Apposition / Appositive Zeugma Hendiadys Pleonasm Enumeration / Accumulatio Passive Voice Cleft Sentence