Epistrophe
Not to be confused with Apostrophe.
This article is about the rhetorical terminology. For the genus of hoverflies, see Epistrophe (genus).
Epistrophe (Greek: ἐπιστροφή, "return") is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.[1] It is also known as epiphora and occasionally as antistrophe. It is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora. It is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.
Platonic Epistrophe
Greek Epistrophe: "a word coined by Plato as a goal of philosophical education and the term adopted by early Christians for conversion." [2]
Examples
- To all Americans tonight in all of our cities and in all of our towns, I make this promise: We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again! — Donald Trump closing his RNC acceptance speech[3]
- Where affections bear rule, their reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued. — Thomas Wilson
- ... this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. — Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address
- When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. — The Apostle Paul, in the Bible, 1 Cor 13:11 (King James Translation)
- Senator Mike Mansfield's funeral oration for John F. Kennedy used the phrase "And she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands" five times.
- Nicki Minaj's verse in the 2 Chainz song I Luv Dem Strippers contains the lyrics:
- "Fifty black trucks gone follow when I pull up,
- This shit hit you in the chin like a pull up,..."
- This is also an example of antanaclasis.
- "Epistrophy," a Thelonious Monk tune that uses an epistrophe of notes.
- "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem." Lyndon B. Johnson in "We Shall Overcome"
- "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- "Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings on you. . . . Scarcity and want shall shun you, Ceres' blessing so is on you." — Shakespeare, The Tempest (4.1.108-109; 116–17)
A birthday card making use of epistrophe.
References
- ↑ George Roberts (schoolmaster.) (1820). A catechism of rhetoric. p. 55. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
- ↑ Peters, Gerald (1993). The Mutilating God: Authorship andAuthority in the Narrative of Conversion. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780870238918.
- ↑ Plumer, Brad (2016-07-22). "Full transcript of Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the RNC". Vox. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
External links
- Audio illustrations of epistrophe
- A correlation of epistrophe and antistrophe
- The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981--1982
- Eric J. Ziolkowski. "The Mutilating God: Authorship and Authority in the Narrative of Conversion (review)."Philosophy and Literature 18.2 (1994): 413-415. Project MUSE. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://muse.jhu.edu/.
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