An example of anastrophe can be found in the following lines of the folk ballad “The Mermaid”: “Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship/And a well-spoken man was he.” The normal word order would be “Then the captain of our gallant ship spoke up/And he was a well-spoken man,” but the order is shifted for poetic or lyrical effect.
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Amplification in writing involves repeating a word or expression while adding detail to it, which helps emphasize a specific point. This technique allows writers to expand and enrich their text, drawing attention to words or ideas that might otherwise be overlooked. Amplification can be achieved through descriptive writing and rhetorical devices like hyperbole or metaphor. For example, instead of simply saying, “This is important,” amplification might look like, “This is important—so important that it could change the entire course of the discussion.”
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Anaphora creates emphasis by repeating the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences. This makes repeated ideas more memorable, adds rhythm, and draws the audience’s attention to the key message. It can stir strong emotions, build momentum, and unify different parts of a text under a central theme, making it more impactful.
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Some rhetorical devices related to anaphora are epistrophe, symploce, and anadiplosis. These devices all involve repetition in various forms, which can add emphasis, rhythm, and emotional impact in speech or writing.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s oft-quoted “I Have a Dream” speech employs anaphora extensively. The repetition of the phrase “go back” in the following lines are an example of that:
“Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.”
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Ourselves is always one word, and it can play two roles in sentences.
As a reflexive pronoun, “ourselves” can be a direct object, an indirect object, or an object of a preposition when the subject is “we” or another noun with “I” (e.g., “We should buy ourselves a new sofa”).
As an intensive pronoun, “ourselves” emphasizes a plural, first-person pronoun or noun (e.g., “We will save money if we paint the bedroom ourselves”).
A QuillBot Grammar Check can help you use “ourselves” and other reflexive or intensive pronouns correctly in your writing.
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Figures of repetition are a subset of rhetorical figures that involve the repetition of words, phrases, sounds, or structures to create emphasis, rhythm, or emotional effect. They are part of the broader category of rhetorical devices used in writing and speech. Examples include assonance, anadiplosis, and epistrophe.
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Epistrophe is the opposite of anaphora. While epistrophe is the repetition of words at the end of a series of phrases or sentences, anaphora is the repetition of words at the beginning. Both are figures of repetition but they differ primarily in their placement within sentences or phrases.
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In the following lines from the Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare employs epistrophe through the repeated phrase “the ring” at the end of four successive clauses:
“If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honor to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.”
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A metaphor is a figure of speech (or rhetorical device) in which one thing or person is said to be something or someone else. It is a nonliteral (figurative) statement. You can write a metaphor by describing something as something else.
For example, in the sentence “My dog is a demon,” the dog is not literally a demon; rather, the metaphor is used to emphasize the dog’s mischievousness or bad behavior.
Metaphor differs from simile, in which the thing or person is not directly said to be something or someone else. Instead, a simile compares the two things/people using comparison words such as “as,” “than,” or “like” (e.g., “my dog behaves like a demon”).
Continue reading: How do you write a metaphor?
