Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. Ward Farnsworth

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СКАЧАТЬ The Club of Queer Trades (1905)

      Here is the same general idea, though without the explicit negative at the end:

      I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still a sense of fun.

      Stevenson, New Arabian Nights (1882)

      The regularity of the anaphora at the start creates a stronger contrast at the end – not with a negative claim, but with an affirmative one that is different in tone from what has come before. The substance and the structure of the sentence both change direction.

      3. Repetition of the subject and verb with different objects, or phrases doing similar work.

      They wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had – or had not.

      Dickens, Bleak House (1853)

      And now let me tell you we know all about the cheque – Soames’s cheque. We know where you got it. We know who stole it. We know how it came to the person who gave it to you. It’s all very well talking, but when you’re in trouble always go to a lawyer.

      Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)

      In both cases repeating the subject and verb gives them a prominence they would lack if they appeared only at the start. Thus about the same substantive impression might be created in the second passage by listing the items serially (we know where you got it, who stole it, and how it came. . .), but repeating the subject and verb leaves we know ringing in the ears; it lays stress not just on the things known but on who knows them.

      I can not forgive that judge upon the bench, or that governor in the chair of state, who has lightly passed over such offenses. I can not forgive the public, in whose opinion the duelist finds a sanctuary. I can not forgive you, my brethren, who till this late hour have been silent while successive murders were committed.

      Nott, sermon at Albany (1804)

      The anaphora makes each sentence a distinct pointing of the finger. The speaker points outward twice, then the hand turns toward the listener. The construction is used similarly here:

      I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the ironed leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted. . . .

      Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

      In both of these last cases, the listener gets involved in the repetition of subject and verb and perhaps isn’t very struck by the objects to which they are attached – until the object is changed in a surprising way at the end of the last round.

      4. Changes in modifying language. Various combinations of the elements so far considered – subject, verb, and complement – may be repeated, with changes just in the modifying words that follow them.

      He was goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed to-day. He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he can’t stand it.

      Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

      The principal uses of this construction are the same as those seen under our other recent headings. It can, as in the case just shown, make a condition sound pervasive or constant. Instead or in addition, the device can be used to set up a contrast between the early elements and an unexpected climax:

      Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT.

      Johnson, in Boswell’s Life (1791)

      The first sentence uses anaphora in the same way the previous passage from Dickens did: to drive home how relentlessly dull the subject was. But it also prepares the ear for the pleasure of the surprise ending.

      Those are straightforward cases where identical statements are followed by modifiers that just change the time or place of their occurrence (last night, the night before last, today; or in company, in his closet, everywhere). But the same sort of construction can be used to enlarge on a theme in more elaborate ways.

      They have bought their knowledge, they have bought it dear, they have bought it at our expense, but at any rate let us be duly thankful that they now at last possess it.

      Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1936)

      And when this new principle – this new proposition that no human being ever thought of three years ago – is brought forward, I combat it as having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the negro, to take away from him the right of ever striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make property, and nothing but property, of the negro in all the States of this Union.

      Lincoln, debate with Stephen Douglas at Alton (1858)

      This time the stem (I combat it) is short compared to the various elaborations attached to it. Repeating the stem helps prevent the action in the sentence from being lost in the long explanation of its rationale. The speaker’s basic position becomes a kind of refrain.

      A case of this sort of anaphora from scripture:

      But 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)

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