Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. Ward Farnsworth
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The effect is a little like blowing up a balloon with short breaths and then letting it go; the repetition of words and structure accustoms the reader to regularity and compression, and the energy of that expectation is released into the last part of the sentence when the patterns are dropped.
Abandonment – or irregularity, to be more precise – is put to slightly different use in this celebrated passage of Churchill’s:
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. . . .
Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1940)
This moment in the speech is best-known for the repeated words themselves (we shall fight. . .), but notice what strength it gains from its internal variety. The parts separated by commas vary in size, lengthening fairly steadily until the middle, then starting shorter again, and then lengthening, and then shortening. The full form of the anaphora – we shall fight – comes and goes, both obviously (we shall defend our island; we shall never surrender) and in smaller ways (in the fields and in the streets – not we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the streets, etc.). These irregularities give the passage a greater sense of passion, of improvisation, and of the spontaneous outburst than it would have if the anaphora and repeated structure were more regular.
The anaphora also creates a repeated foundation onto which Churchill adds other kinds of variety – movement not only between different kinds of imagery (seas and oceans . . . the air . . . the beaches, etc.) but also between concrete images like those and the more abstract language at the start and end (We shall go on to the end . . . we shall never surrender). The passage taken as a whole illustrates very well the power of rhetorical technique to create an utterance of great force and utility; the substance of it could have been expressed concisely, and forgettably, in seven or eight words.
3. Repetition at the End: EPISTROPHE
The most memorable moment – actually the only memorable moment – of the 1988 vice-presidential debate came when Dan Quayle, a young candidate for the office, suggested that he had as much experience as did John Kennedy before he was elected president. The reply of Quayle’s opponent, Lloyd Bentsen, is still remembered by most who heard it and has passed into cultural currency among many who didn’t: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy; I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy. The substance of this riposte, like the substance of Churchill’s line at the end of the last chapter, could have been said in many ways, most of which would have made no lasting impression. It owes its fame to EPISTROPHE (e-pis-tro-phee – sometimes also known as antistrophe): the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of a series of sentences or clauses. Notice that the repeated element, Jack Kennedy, is put at the front rather than the end of the third clause, then moved back to the end for the finish. The variety adds to the force of the device when it resumes.
The general purposes of epistrophe tend to be similar to those of anaphora, but the sound is different, and often a bit subtler, because the repetition does not become evident until each time a sentence or clause ends. Sometimes epistrophe also is easier to use, and it tends to be convenient on different occasions, because the parts of speech that most naturally go at the end of an English sentence or clause aren’t the same as the ones that come most naturally at the start.
1. Different actions, same objects. Epistrophe is useful for describing various actions done by the same actor toward or concerning the same thing.
[T]o say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title, which is within a very little of nothing.
All’s Well that Ends Well, 2, 4
They criticise every thing, analyse every thing, argue upon every thing, dogmatise upon every thing; and the bundle of your habits, feelings, humours, follies and pursuits is regarded by them no more than a bundle of old clothes.
Hazlitt, Mr. Jeffrey (1825)
And this right to live includes, and in fact is, the right to be what the child likes and can, to do what it likes and can, to make what it likes and can, to think what it likes and can, to smash what it dislikes and can, and generally to behave in an altogether unaccountable manner within the limits imposed by the similar rights of its neighbors.
Shaw, A Treatise on Parents and Children (1910)
In these last two cases the words repeated by the epistrophe may not be the ones most emphasized; rather, the device gives the verbs more emphasis by treating each of them as entitled to its own phrase, not just to a place on a list. This same construction also can be used, usually with fewer repetitions, just to unify claims and lend them euphony.
The constituency has judged me; it has elected me; I stand here with no legal disqualification upon me.
Bradlaugh, speech in the House of Commons (1881)
The sentence probably would be sound as a grammatical matter without the last two words, but they join the ending with the rest of the sentence and the process it describes. Epistrophe is helpful generally for thus driving home a progression through stages. The progression in that last example was literal: a march through events. But it also can be a progression through stronger claims:
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.
Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
2. Same action, different doers or recipients, as when the speaker means to describe several people all doing the same thing or meeting the same fate. In plainest form, the speaker simply attaches different subjects to the same verb.
We claim that the government, while the Constitution recognizes our property for the purposes of taxation, shall give it the same protection that it gives yours. Ought it not to be so? You say no. Every one of you upon the committee said no. Your senators say no. Your House of Representatives says no. Throughout the length and breadth of your conspiracy against the Constitution there is but one shout of no!
Toombs, speech in the Senate (1861)
The usual effect of this pattern is a sense of comprehensiveness: everyone does (or doesn’t do) the same thing, and the sameness of whatever is done is made more prominent than the doers of it.
The great preachers of our capital have not said so; Mr. Dunn, that meek spirit of the gospel, he has not said so; Mr. Douglass, in his strain of piety, morals, and eloquence, he has not said so; nor the great luminary himself; he who has wrung from his own breast, as it were, near £60,000, by preaching for public charities, and has stopped the mouth of hunger for public charities, and has stopped the mouth of hunger with its own bread, he has not said so.
Grattan, speech in the House of Commons (1805)
That perfect liberty they sigh for – the liberty of making slaves of other people, Jefferson never thought of, their own fathers never thought of, they never thought of themselves, a year ago.
Lincoln, debate with Stephen Douglas at Peoria (1854)
The same construction can be put to passive use: those to whom something is done change, but the thing done to them stays the same, and is repeated at the end:
Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death.
Dickens,