Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. Ward Farnsworth

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      Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)

      Notice the two rounds of anaphora at the end of this last case; and notice throughout how the lengths of the units expand and contract – an important theme considered more fully in the chapter on isocolon.

      9. Uses of variety. As with anaphora and other repetitive devices, the strongest uses of epistrophe sometimes are made by establishing the pattern and then abandoning it. Thus it often is effective to repeat an ending a few times and then drop it in the concluding phrase; the finale is given a push because it releases the energy created by the earlier rounds of repetition.

      I will not parade the two old women, whose untimely and unseemly introduction into the dress-circle of diplomacy was hardly to have been expected of the high official whose name is at the bottom of this paper. They prove nothing, they disprove nothing, they illustrate nothing – except that a statesman may forget himself.

      Holmes, John Lothrop Motley: A Memoir (1879)

      Slavery shrinks from the light; it hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved.

      Douglass, speech at London (1846)

      These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise.

      Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873)

      10. Note on Lincoln’s applications. We have seen examples of Lincoln’s use of epistrophe already, though not yet his most famous use of the device – probably the most famous instance of it in English:

      . . . that this nation 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.

      Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

      He borrowed the idea partly from Daniel Webster.

      It is, Sir, the people’s Constitution, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.

      Webster, Reply to Hayne (1830)

      Lincoln was a master of epistrophe. Here he uses it in five or six different ways to make his consistency a rhetorical as well as a substantive fact:

      If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

      Lincoln, letter to Horace Greeley (1862)

      Lincoln also made frequent use of a particular kind of epistrophe in which he repeated a word or phrase at the end of both halves of a sentence with little space between them.

      This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave.

      Lincoln, letter to H.L. Pierce (1859)

      I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power.

      Lincoln, letter to A.G. Hodges (1864)

      [T]he thing which determines whether a man is free or a slave is rather concrete than abstract. I think you would conclude that it was, if your liberty depended upon it, and so would Judge Douglas, if his liberty depended upon it.

      Lincoln, speech at Springfield (1858)

      The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

      Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

      Here as elsewhere, Lincoln’s ear was influenced by the King James Bible.

      But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

      Matthew 6:15

      And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

      Genesis 13:6

      4. Repetition at the Start and End: SYMPLOCE

      SYMPLOCE (most often pronounced sim-plo-see, though respectable sources don’t always agree, and the more sensible pronunciation as a matter of etymology is sim-plo-kee) combines anaphora and epistrophe: words are repeated at the start of successive sentences or clauses, and other words are repeated at the end of them, often with just a small change in the middle. The nearly complete repetition lends itself to elegant effects. It also locks the speaker into a small number of possible patterns, so our treatment of them can be brief.

      1. Corrections; reversals of direction. Symploce is useful for highlighting the contrast between correct and incorrect claims. The speaker changes the word choice in the smallest way that will suffice to separate the two possibilities; the result is conspicuous contrast between the small tweak in wording and the large change in substance. Some simple cases of correction, in which the symploce serves to emphasize a surprising change in direction:

      We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

      Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

      I am not afraid of you; – but I am afraid for you.

      Trollope, The Prime Minister (1876)

      The order may as easily be reversed: the correct statement followed by the incorrect one, which is negated:

      We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone.

      Churchill, London radio broadcast (1940)

      This construction also can emphasize the opposite nature of two claims, as here:

      The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

      Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

      By keeping the statements parallel and nearly identical – the same nouns and verbs in the same order, with a change only in the words that relate them to each other – Chesterton causes the rhetoric to reflect the perfect reversal of understanding he means to suggest in substance.

      [T]he right honourable gentleman has in a very СКАЧАТЬ