AP Language and Composition

SCHEMES OF REPETITION(PAGE 388)

Alliteration• Repetition of initial or middle consonants in two or more adjacent words• Adds beauty to speech, but as it is such an obvious it is rarely used in modern prose• A sable, silent, solemn forest stood. – James Thomson, “The

Castle of Indolence”• Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and

weary, over a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore – While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping. – Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”

Try this speech• But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.

V for Vendetta• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQyqx1K495U

Tongue Twisters!• Girl gargoyle, guy gargoyle.• Give Mr. Snipe’s wife’s knife a swipe. • Betty better butter Brad’s bread.• Fat frogs flying past fast. • He was a preposterously pompous proponent of precious pedantry.

Assonance• Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words• Mostly used in poetry• Sounds more like a rap if used in regular writing• He tries to revise the evidence supplied to his eyes• I bomb atomically—Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses

can't define how I be droppin' these mockeries. — Inspectah Deck, from the Wu-Tang Clan's "Triumph."

Anaphora• Repetition of the same word or groups of words at the beginnings of successive clauses• Very deliberate• Often used to estalbish emotional effect (pathos)• http://www.americanrhetoric.com/figures/anaphora.htm

Epistrophe• Counterpart to anaphora• Repetition of the same word or groups of words at the ends of successive clauses• Sets up rhythm and sets an emphasis• ... 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• "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we

forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!"(Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003)

Lord of the Rings• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXGUNvIFTQw

Enanalepsis• Repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause• Year chases year, decay pursues decay. – Samuel Johnson,

“The Vanity of Human Wishes”• Blood hath brough blood, and blows have answer’d blows:

Strength match’d with strength, and power confronted power. – Shakespeare, King John

• “Perhaps the best general advice about the use of epanalepsis-in fact of all those schemes that are appropriate only to extraordinary circumstances-would be, ‘If you find yourself concsiously deciding to use enanalepsis, don’t use it.’ When the time is appropriate, the scheme will present itself unbidden.”

Anadiplosis• Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause

Climax• Arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance• Veni vidi vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered")

Antimetabole• Repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order• I know what I like, and I like what I know• Eat to live, not live to eat.• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can

do for your country." John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.

Chiasmus• Reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses• Consider the example of a parallel sentence:

”He knowingly led and we blindly followed”(A B A B) (Subject, adverb, verb, conjunction (cross), subject, adverb, verb.) Inverting into chiasmus:"He knowingly led and we followed blindly"(A B B A) (Subject, adverb, verb, conjunction (cross), subject, verb, adverb.)

Polyptoton• Repetition of words derived from the same root• "With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder." William Shakespeare

Richard II II,i,37• "I'm a man who likes talking to a man that likes to talk." [Caspar Gutman to

Sam Spade, Chapter XI (The Fat Man) in Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1930)]

• And when My servants ask you, [O Muhammad], concerning Me - indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me. So let them respond to Me [by obedience] and believe in Me that they may be [rightly] guided. (2:186)

Try it out yourselves!