If I’ve Said It Once…

To paraphrase that wise king Solomon, “There’s a time and place for everything.” For writers, that includes repetition, despite the oft-heard advice to avoid needless repetition. Just to be clear, there’s a difference between repetition and redundancy. Redundancy is needless repetition; it serves no point. Repetition, well placed and appropriately used, provides emphasis, creates emotion, strengthens your writing and makes it memorable. Share on X

Several literary devices employ a specific type of repetition. Although their names may not be familiar to you (they weren’t to me), it’s quite possible you’ve encountered the technique in your reading and probably used it in your writing.

Anadiplosis is Latin for “repetition of an initial word.” Repeating the last word of a clause or phrase near the beginning of the next is anadiplosis. These verses from the apostle Peter’s second letter illustrate:

“……… you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love” (II Peter 1:5 – 7).

The repetition emphasizes and reinforces the writer’s point. In this case, Peter is showing how these spiritual disciplines are connected. It’s not possible to produce one fruit of the Spirit without the others following.

And for a less sublime, but equally effective use of anadiplosis, you need look no further than DirectTV’s 2012 ad touting the disastrous results for those who opt out of their cable TV service:

“When your cable company keeps you on hold, you get angry. When you get angry, you go blow off steam. When you go blow off steam, accidents happen. When accidents happen, you get an eye patch. When you get an eye patch, people think you’re tough. When people think you’re tough, people want to see how tough. And when people want to see how tough, you wake up in a roadside ditch. Don’t wake up in a roadside ditch: Get rid of cable and upgrade to DIRECTV”

Anaphora, a literary device with roots in the psalms, is the repetition of the first word or words in a series of successive phrases. This device is useful for building to a climax and achieving an emotional effect. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is an example of accomplishing just that. One classical scholar has compared anaphora to “a series of hammer blows in which the repetition of the word both connects and reinforces the successive thoughts.”

Sara Thebarge uses anaphora effectively in a recent blog about working in a missionary hospital in Africa.

“I cried because my heart aches for the families who lost their loved ones.  I cried because I’m spent — I don’t feel well, and after being up on my feet working all day, I feel even worse.  I cried because so much has gone into building and running this hospital, and yet some days, it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Notice how repeating “I cried” becomes so much more than a physical act, but reveals Sara’s heart.

Antistrophe (also called epistrophe) is the exact opposite of anaphora. Here the repetition occurs at the end of each successive clause, phrase, or sentence.

If you’ve ever been called to witness at a trial you’ve recited an antistrophe when you promised “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” This may be a case where having heard that oath so often it no longer carries the weight it once did. But repeating a word or series of words at the end of a construction is good way to emphasize a point. It also has the effect making a statement more memorable.

Abraham Lincoln, a great rhetorician as well as revered president, used both anaphora and antistrophe effectively in the Gettysburg Address.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground.

And

…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.

It bears repeating, well-placed, well-used repetition is persuasive. Like any good thing, overdone it loses its impact.