Repetition as a Literary Device: Types and Examples
Repetition is a literary device and has different forms. It is used in prose, poetry, and music to create rhythm, emphasis, and emotional connection. Read on to learn more about repetition as a literary device.
Introduction
Repetition is a powerful literary device used across various genres and forms of writing to create emphasis, enhance rhythm, and reinforce meaning. It involves the purposeful reuse of words, phrases, or sounds to emphasize a point, create rhythm, or build an intended effect. Writers employ repetition intentionally to evoke emotions, highlight key themes, and make their messages more memorable. Repetition as a literary device is seen in a piece of writing where the same word, phrase, or sound occurs many times or in a particular order within the piece.
This article explores the different types of repetition, provides relevant examples, and references significant literary works that effectively utilize this technique.
Purpose of Repetition
Here are the reasons a writer will choose to use repetition in a piece of writing.
1. Rhythm and flow:
Repetition can create a rhythmic effect or musical effect. This makes the text more engaging and memorable.
2. Emotional impact:
Repetition can intensify the emotional impact of a text making the reader or listener feel strongly about the subject matter. People will feel more connected, stimulated, aroused, etc. Due to the effect of repetition in a passage.
3. Emphasis:
Repetition draws attention to a particular subject, action, emotion, idea, or character trait making it stand out to the reader or listener.
4. Unity and Cohesion:
Writers also use repletion to unify a piece of writing or speech making it more focused and connected.
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Types of Repetition in Literature
1. Anaphora
Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences, or lines in poetry. This technique is often used in speeches and poetry to create a sense of rhythm and urgency.
Example 1:
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up… I have a dream that one day… I have a dream today.”
Example 2:
Charles Dickens’ Novel, A Tale of Two Cities:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
2. Epiphora (or Epistrophe)
Epiphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses, sentences, or lines in poems. Epiphora is also known as eistrophe or antistrophe. The opposite of epiphora is anaphora.
Example 1:
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
“… government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
Example 2:
William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”
Example 3:
William Shakespear’s Merchant of Venice, the soliloquy of Bassanio repeats “the ring” at the end of each line.
The soliloquy of Bassanio from The Merchant of Vernice
“If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.”
3. Symploce
Symploce is the combination of anaphora and epiphora, where a word or phrase is repeated at both the beginning and the end of successive clauses or sentences. The word “symploce” comes from the Greek word “symploke” which means “interweaving” or “combination”. Symploce is often used to highlight contrasts, create balance, and add rhythm. Symploce is more commonly used in poetry.
Example1:
Winston Churchill’s speech:
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields…”
Example 2:
Biblical Psalms, e.g., “O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, give ear to my supplications.”
Example 3:
Bartholomew Griffin’s poem “Sonnet 62”
“Most true that I must fair FIDESSA love.
Most true that I fair FIDESSA cannot love.
Most true that I do feel the pains of love.
Most true that I am captive unto love.
Most true that I deluded am with love.
Most true that I do find the sleights of love.
Most true that nothing can procure her love.
Most true that I must perish in my love.
Most true that She contemns the God of love.
Most true that he is snarèd with her love.
Most true that She would have me cease to love.
Most true that She herself alone is Love.
Most true that though She hated, I would love !
Most true that dearest life shall end with love. “
4. Refrain
Refrain is a repeated line or phrase within a poem or song. Often the word, phrase, line, or a group of lines is repeated at specific intervals, especially at the end or beginning of a stanza.
Example 1:
Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. The line, “And miles to go before I sleep”, is repeated at the end of every poem.
Stanza 4
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
Example 2:
William Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night. “With hey, ho, the wind and the rain” and “For the rain it raineth every day” repeat in the song.
Stanzas 1 and 2
“When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.”
5. Alliteration
Although primarily a phonetic device, alliteration involves the repetition of initial sounds in closely positioned words to create musicality and mood. The repeated letter may be a consonant or a vowel.
Example 1:
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Example 2:
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven: “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain…”
Stanza 3
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
6. Consonance
Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds within or at the end of words that are close to one another in a text.
Example 1:
“The lumpy, bumpy road”
Example 2:
Emily Dickinson’s poetry often features assonance and consonance: “Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.”
Example 3:
The sound /h/ is repeated in “hand” and “heavy” in Wole Soyinka’s “Night”.
“Your hand is heavy, Night, upon my brow” (line 1).
7. Assonance
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in words that are close to one another in a text. In other words, assonance is “vowel rhyme”.
Example 1:
“Try to light the fire” (assonance).
Example 2:
Emily Dickinson’s poetry often features assonance and consonance: “Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.”
Example 3:
The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;”
(stanza 1, lines 1-5)
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8. Anadiplosis
Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next. It is used in speeches, everyday conversations, poetry, and even in children’s books. The aim of anadiplosis is often to stretch the logical progression of an idea.
Example1 :
A statement by Yoda in Star Wars –
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Example 2:
William Shakespeare’s Richard II: “The love of wicked men converts to fear, that fear to hate, and hate turns one or both to worthy danger.”
Example 3:
Malcolm X said, “Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude.”
Example 4:
“William Yeats poem, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree –
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, (line 1)
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,” (line 5)
9. Diacope
Diacope involves the repetition of a word or phrase with a small number of intervening words. It is used to emphasize a point or enhance the emotional impact of language. Diacope means “cutting in two”.
Example 1:
Hamlet by William Shakespeare –
“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
Example 2:
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
“Alas, alas! Why all this fuss? Alas!”
Example 3:
Walt Whitman’s poem, O Captain! My Captain! Repeats “O Captain! my Captain!”
10. Polyptoton
Polyptoton is the repetition of the same root word in different forms within a sentence or a line (in the case of poems). Polyptpton is also known as paregmenon.
Example 1:
William Shakespeare Sonnet 116
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”
Example 2:
John Milton’s Paradise Lost:
“Thou art of spirit all compact, spirit of sense.”
Example 3:
Herbert Kretzmer and Claude-Michel Schönberg, “I Dreamed a Dream.” Les Miserables, 1985
“I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living.”
11. Epizeuxis
Epizeuxis is the immediate repetition of a word or phrase without any intervening words. The repetition comes in quick succession. This creates powerful persuasion in speeches and can be used as a rallying cry. It is also used to communicate despair and weariness; and sometimes for humour.
Example 1:
“Never, never, never give up.”
Example 2:
William Wordsworth’s “We are seven, seven children.”
Example 3:
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 5 begins with
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”
Example 4:
Tony Blair’s speech on education in 2001
“Our top priority was, is, and always will be education, education, education.”
12. Antanaclasis
Antanaclasis is the repetition of a word within a sentence or phrase but with a different meaning each time. This creates a pun or witty wordplay.
Example 1:
Benjamin Franklin’s statement
“We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
– “hang” in the first instance means “stay” or “stand”, and the second means “be hanged”.
Example 2:
William Shakespeare’s Othello – Othello enters Desdemona’s room to kill her because he believes she had been unfaithful to him. A candle was burning in the room, then Othello said,
“Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light.”
“Light” in the first instance represents the burning candle, and in the second case, it represents Desdemona’s life.
Conclusion
Repetition is a versatile literary device that enhances the readability, rhythm, and emotional impact of a text. Writers from classical to modern literature have employed various forms of repetition to captivate audiences, underscore their themes, and create memorable expressions.
Repetition as a literary device is vital in storytelling and poetry as it deepens meaning, creates puns, and raises a clarion call. It can be employed in different aspects of life like music, advertising, speeches, etc.