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Rhetoric.
The repetition of the same word or phrase in several successive clauses.
(OED)
Figure of repetition that occurs when the first word or set
of words in one sentence, clause, or phrase is/are repeated at or very near the
beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases; repetition of the
initial word(s) over successive phrases or clauses.
(American Rhetoric:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/figures/anaphora.htm)
The term "anaphora" comes from the Greek for "a carrying up or back," and refers
to a type of parallelism created when successive phrases or lines begin with the
same words, often resembling a litany. The repetition can be as simple as a
single word or as long as an entire phrase. As one of the world’s oldest poetic
techniques, anaphora is used in much of the world’s religious and devotional
poetry, including numerous Biblical Psalms.
(Poets.org:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5770)
This royal throne of kings,
this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty,
this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men,
this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as [a] moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot,
this earth,
this realm,
this
England,
This nurse,
this teeming womb of royal kings [. . .]
This land of such dear souls,
this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out — I die pronouncing it —
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
—John of Gaunt in Shakespeare's Richard
II (2.1.40-51; 57-60)
We shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to
the end. We shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in
the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,
we
shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in
the hills. We shall never surrender. --
Winston Churchill, speech to the
House of Commons, June 4, 1940
"It's the hope of
slaves sitting around a
fire singing freedom songs; the hope of
immigrants
setting out for distant shores;
the hope of a young
naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta;
the
hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds;
the hope of
a skinny kid with a funny name who
believes that America has a place for him, too.
"Hope--hope in the face of difficulty.
Hope in the face of
uncertainty. The audacity of
hope!"
[varies by inversion or reversal]
(Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope," July 27, 2004)
Parallelism
Parallelism
From A Handbook to Literature. Ed. C. Hugh
Holman, 3rd edn. Indianapolis: Odyssey, 1972.
A structural arrangement of parts of a sentence,
sentences, paragraphs, and larger units of composition by which one element of
equal importance with another is similarly developed and phrased. . . .
Parallelism
is characteristic of Oriental [i.e., Middle
Eastern] poetry, being notably present in the Psalms,
as in
The Heavens declare the glory of
God;
And the firmament sheweth his
handywork.
It is also characteristic of the
songs and chants of
the American Indians. Parallelism seems to be the
controlling principle
of the poetry of Walt Whitman. . . .
from Walt Whitman, "A Child Went Forth" (1855)
There
was a child went forth every day
And the first object
he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object
became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or
stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs
became part of this child,
And grass and white
and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the
phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month
lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood
of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish
suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious
liquid,
And the water-plants
with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.
The field-sprouts of
Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him,
From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and
Poetics. Ed. Alex Preminger. Princeton UP, 1975.
Parallelism [Gk. "side by side"] In poetry
a
state of correspondence between one phrase, line, or verse with another.
Parallelism seems to be the basic aesthetic principle of poetic utterance. . . .
Parallelism of clauses is the central principle of biblical verse . . . . [T]he
poet who has certainly made the most use of this device in English is
Walt
Whitman. . . .
Examples of stylistic
parallelism in Western and American discourse
From
The Bible (King James Version),
Ecclesiastes,
Ch. 3
- To every
thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
- A time to
be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that
which is planted;
- A time to
kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
- A time to
weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
- A time to
cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace,
and a time to refrain from embracing;
- A time to
get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
- A time to
rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
- A time to
love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. . . .
Abraham
Lincoln, from "Address Delivered at the Dedication
of the Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863."
. . . But, in a larger sense,
we
can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow--this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little not, nor long remember what we say here, but it can
never forget wheat they did here.
It
is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us
to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain--that 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.
John F. Kennedy,
from Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1961, the Capitol, Washington DC
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us
well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of
liberty. This much we pledge - and more. To those old allies whose cultural and
spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends.
United,
there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there
is little we can do . . . .
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what
your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what
America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. . .
.
(Thanks to Titan Publishing.
http://home.istar.ca/~titan/20jan61.htm)
Martin
Luther King, "I Have a Dream," 28 August
1963 [March on Washington, D. C., delivered at the Lincoln Memorial] (from
A
Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. J.
M. Washington [SF: Harper & Row, 1986], pp. 217-220]
. . . So I say to you, my friends, that even though
we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow,
I
still have a dream.
It is a dream
deeply rooted in the American 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.
I have a
dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will
be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a
dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice,
sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and justice.
I have a
dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a
dream that one day, down in
Alabama
. . . .
I have a
dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain
shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places
shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh
shall see it together. . . . [biblical paraphrase]
So let
freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of
New Hampshire.
Let
freedom ring from the mighty mountains of
New York.
Let
freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.
Let
freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of
Colorado.
Let
freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of
California.
But not only that.
Let
freedom ring from Stone Mountain of
Georgia.
Let
freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of
Tennessee.
Let
freedom ring from every hill and molehill of
Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. . . .
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