Epistrophe

Epistrophe (Greek: ἐπιστροφή, "return") is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.^[1] It is also known as epiphora and occasionally as antistrophe. It is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora. It is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.

Platonic epistrophe

Greek epistrophe: "a word coined by Plato as a goal of philosophical education and the term adopted by early Christians for conversion".^[2]

Examples

• "Where affections bear rule, their reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued." — Thomas Wilson
• "... 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
• "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." —  The Apostle Paul, in the Bible, 1 Cor 13:11 (King James Translation)
• "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem." Lyndon B. Johnson in "We Shall Overcome"
• "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

— Shakespeare, The Tempest (4.1.108-109; 116–17)

A birthday card making use of epistrophe.

See also

• Antimetabole
• Anthimeria
• Figure of speech
• Epistrophy (composition), a jazz standard composed by Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke in 1941

References

External links

• Audio illustrations of epistrophe
• The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981--1982
• Eric J. Ziolkowski. "The Mutilating God: Authorship and Authority in the Narrative of Conversion (review)."Philosophy and Literature 18.2 (1994): 413-415. Project MUSE. Web. 26 Jan. 2013. http://muse.jhu.edu/.