Rhetorical Devices Flashcards
Anaphora
Repetition of one or more words at the head of consecutive phrases, clauses, or sentences: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Antistrophe
Repetition of a word or phrase at the close of successive clauses: “You said he was late — true enough. You said he was not prepared — true enough. You said he did not defend his statements — true enough.”
Antithesis
Contrast within parallel phrases (not to be confused with the ordinary use of the word to mean “extreme opposite”): “Many are called, but few are chosen.” The term can also refer to literary characters who, though not necessarily antagonists, represent opposite personal characteristics or moral views.
Aporia
A statement of hesitation, also known as dubitatio, in which characters express to themselves an actual or feigned doubt or dilemma: “Should I strike now, or bide my time?”
Apostrophe
Interruption of thought to directly address a person or a personification: “So, I ask you, dear reader, what would you have me do?”
Chiasmus
This is the reversal of grammatical order from one phrase to the next, exemplified in these two well-known quotes about evaluation: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” and “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”
Epanelepsis
Starting and ending a phrase, clause, or a sentence, or a passage, with the same word or phrase: “Nothing is worse than doing nothing.”
Epistrophe
The repetition of a word at the end of each phrase or clause: “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Epizeuxis
Epizeuxis, also called palilogia, refers to nothing more than the repetition of words: “To my fifteen-year-old daughter, everything is ‘boring, boring, boring!’”
Meiosis
A dismissive epithet, such as treehugger, or a humorously dismissive understatement (also known as tapinosis), such as the Monty Python and the Holy Grail gem “It’s just a flesh wound!”
Polyptoton
Repetition of two or more forms of a word; also known as paregmenon: “You try to forget, and in the forgetting, you are yourself forgotten.”
Synathroesmus
A series of adjectives, also known as accumulatio, compiled often in the service of criticism: “You’re the most arrogant, selfish, self-absorbed, insufferable narcissist I’ve ever met!”
