Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. Ward Farnsworth
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woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
Matthew 23:13–16
5. To elaborate on a single word. A variation on the pattern just shown uses anaphora to state a subject repeatedly, with each round joined to a longer descriptive phrase afterwards.
To whom then would I make the East-India Company accountable? Why, to parliament, to be sure; to parliament, from which their trust was derived; to parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending the magnitude of its object, and its abuse; and alone capable of an effectual legislative remedy.
Burke, speech on East India Bill (1783)
How, then, have we become enslaved? Alas! England, that ought to have been to us a sister and a friend – England, whom we have protected, and whom we do protect – England, at a period when, out of 100,000 of the seamen in her service, 70,000 were Irish, England stole upon us like a thief in the night, and robbed us of the precious gem of our liberty; she stole from us “that in which naught enriched her, but made us poor indeed.”
Sheil, argument for the defense in the trial of John O’Connell (1843)
And yet in all this we are told that there is something to create extreme alarm and suspicion; we, who have never fortified any places; we, who have not a greater than Sebastopol at Gibraltar; we, who have not an impregnable fortress at Malta, who have not spent the fortune of a nation almost in the Ionian Islands; we, who are doing nothing at Alderney; we are to take offence at the fortifications of Cherbourg!
Bright, Principles of Foreign Policy (1858)
In each of last two cases the anaphora postpones the action of the sentence while description of the subject is piled higher and higher, thus creating some suspense: what finally will be said about it? And in each case notice the contrast between the last statement made about the subject and all the ones that came before, which effectively served to set up the contrasting climax.
6. Repeating descriptive language at the start, as when several things share some important quality.
I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen.
Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)
Or perhaps the speaker wants instead to stress the common way in which various things are accomplished:
I give this heavy weight from off my head
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duty’s rites:
All pomp and majesty I do forswear. . . .
Richard II, 4, 1
By agitation Ireland became strong; by agitation she put down her bitter enemies; by agitation has conscience been set free; by agitation Irish freedom has been purchased; and by agitation it shall be secured.
O’Connell, speech in the House of Commons (1830)
Or over what common period of time:
It is the most grievous consequence of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years – five years of futile good intentions, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance, five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years of neglect of our air defenses.
Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1938)
Sometimes repeating a modifier is just a helpful way to present action and link the elements of it together:
Three machines – three horses – three flounderings – three turnings round – three splashes – three gentlemen, disporting themselves in the water like so many dolphins.
Dickens, Sketches by Boz (1836)
Now the dogs of war being let loose, began to lick their bloody lips; now Victory, with golden wings, hung hovering in the air; now Fortune, taking her scales from her shelf, began to weigh the fates of Tom Jones, his female companion, and Partridge, against the landlord, his wife, and maid. . . .
Fielding, Tom Jones (1749)
The repeated now helps to unify the sentence; and naming the time in this way paints the picture more vividly, as if the author points to or conducts action occurring in the present and marks its pace. Fielding is having some fun here, as he often did, with a construction that was prominent in classical epic.
A variant of this theme is the modifying word stated repeatedly with various reasons for it appended afterwards. It much resembles a similar construction we saw at the end of section 3, above (the repeated noun with different language afterwards).
I mentioned £80,000, the new expenses created by the last ministry; expenses memorable, because they happen to be equal to the whole amount of the new taxes; memorable, for they are a strain of profusion unparallelled; memorable, because men ashamed of that ministry on account of such expence endeavour to entail that expence upon the people. . . .
Grattan, speech in the Irish Parliament (1778)
I have shown that slavery is wicked – wicked, in that it violates the great law of liberty, written on every human heart – wicked, in that it violates the first command of the decalogue – wicked, in that it fosters the most disgusting licentiousness – wicked, in that it mars and defaces the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions – wicked, in that it contravenes the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all the humane and heavenly precepts of the New Testament.
Douglass, speech at Rochester (1850)
Without the repetition the reader would become involved in the details of the reasoning, the statement of which would get farther and farther from the word it is all meant to explain. Returning to the word reminds the ear of the judgment being made, refreshes the listener’s attention, and renews the passion in the utterance.
7. Long stems. In the examples seen so far, anaphora has usually meant just a short similarity at the start of successive sentences or clauses. The repeated language can go on longer, however, and so create a bit of suspense and surprise: the listener sits through almost the entire phrase a second time before learning how it will end differently.
Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
Richard III, 1, 2
The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is a careless solemnity.
Chesterton, Heretics (1905)
Perhaps it may be our turn soon; perhaps it may be our turn now.
Churchill, speech at London (1941)
8. Miniatures. Anaphora creates a distinctly energetic effect when applied at the start of several short phrases in a row.
There is nothing simple, nothing manly, nothing ingenuous, open, decisive, or steady, in the proceeding,