Epistrophe
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- See also: Epistrophe (genus)
Epistrophe (Greek: ἐπιστροφή, "return"), also known as epiphora (and occasionally as antistrophe), is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora. It is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences. It is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.
Examples
- Where affections bear rule, their reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued. — Thomas Wilson
- ... 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. — Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address
- When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. — The Apostle Paul, in the Bible, 1 Cor 13:11 (King James Translation)
- Senator Mike Mansfield's funeral oration for John F. Kennedy used the phrase "And she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands" five times.
- "Epistrophy," a Thelonious Monk tune that uses an epistrophe of notes.
- "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem." Lyndon B. Johnson in "We Shall Overcome"
- " These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long." -Their Eyes Were Watching God ( Zora Neale Hurston)
- "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- "Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings on you. [. . .] Scarcity and want shall shun you, Ceres' blessing so is on you." — Shakespeare, The Tempest (4.1.108-109; 116-17)
