Anaphora

This entry is about the rhetorical term. For other uses of the word, see Anaphora (disambiguation).

In rhetoric, anaphora (from the Greek anaphérō, "I repeat") is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of several consecutive sentences or verses to emphasize an image or a concept.

Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!

— (William Shakespeare, King John, II, i)

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

— (Winston Churchill)

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer! (One people, one empire, one leader!)

— (Adolf Hitler)

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp.

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

— (William Blake, from The Tyger)

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See also