Writing Help 129 | - Freelance Writer
Mar 25, 2013 | #1
Using Advanced Rhetorical Devices to Surprise and Delight
For at least the last century, there has been a steady movement toward succinctness of expression in writing. This is at least partly attributable to the modern movement in literature and criticism, which extolled the virtues of the lean, strong, masculine verse, as well as to the rise of science, which demands precision and clarity of meaning. Your instructors likely pick your writing apart for failures in these areas, as wordiness is now considered one of the deadly sins of effective writing. Personally, I do believe that trimming can often make well written poetry and prose much more effective, but there must be a balance between the efficiency of an expression and its persuasive and emotional impact. This is where rhetoric comes is; rhetorical devices are efficient ways to convey viewpoints and information while evoking emotional and aesthetic responses. There is always a more direct way to phrase something than to use a rhetorical device, but remember that persuasion and beauty are other worthy goals which are not serviced as well by unadorned prose.
Anaphora is one device that obviously violates principles of succinctness in favor of aesthetic and emotional ends. This term describes the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or lines, in order to emphasize the importance, magnitude, power, or some other aspect of the repeated word(s). The repetition can be limited to the first word of each textual segment, or it can be as long as the segment continues. In the following example, the anaphora is somewhere between the two extremes: "I need your touch. I need your smell. I need your taste, your voice; I need you more than life."
Under normal circumstances, writers try to vary the words they use in a given section of text, and avoid placing the same words in close proximity to one another, because this can sound clumsy and jarring. However, when anaphora is used, the repetition is so obvious and intentional that it serves to order the entire passage in which it is employed, giving it a songlike or poetic feel. In this example, the author could have chosen to make this list far differently, an example of which follows: "I need your touch, smell, taste, and voice; I need you more than life." This is fine, and entirely grammatical, but it is definitely lacking something. In the first example, the repetition of I need continually brings us back to the depth of feeling the speaker has for each of the things he says he needs. He needs each of these things, and each one is so important that it receives its own individual and complete statement. The pauses required between each repetition also helps the drama of the situation, as you can imagine the speaker taking a breath and summoning all his strength before uttering each item on the list. Note that the third line contains a slight variation, with two items presented together behind a single I need. It is important to remember that such variation is important even when using a device like anaphora, because although the essential structure of the repetition should be maintained to achieve the desired effect, other aspects of the lines can and should be altered to keep the lines flowing, and to make them fresher and less predictable.
Anaphora is a device that you will find only infrequently in regular speech, since it requires a suitably important subject and careful wording to make it effective. It finds its most comfortable home in song and poetry, where the patterned arrangement of leading words is another effect which can be combined with rhyme and a host of others to make the sounds of the words as aesthetically pleasing as the images and sensations the words convey. Political speeches also accommodate anaphora easily, since politicians want to make sure they drive their important ideas deeply into the minds of listeners through repetition and pleasing parallel items.
Anaphora
For at least the last century, there has been a steady movement toward succinctness of expression in writing. This is at least partly attributable to the modern movement in literature and criticism, which extolled the virtues of the lean, strong, masculine verse, as well as to the rise of science, which demands precision and clarity of meaning. Your instructors likely pick your writing apart for failures in these areas, as wordiness is now considered one of the deadly sins of effective writing. Personally, I do believe that trimming can often make well written poetry and prose much more effective, but there must be a balance between the efficiency of an expression and its persuasive and emotional impact. This is where rhetoric comes is; rhetorical devices are efficient ways to convey viewpoints and information while evoking emotional and aesthetic responses. There is always a more direct way to phrase something than to use a rhetorical device, but remember that persuasion and beauty are other worthy goals which are not serviced as well by unadorned prose.
Anaphora is one device that obviously violates principles of succinctness in favor of aesthetic and emotional ends. This term describes the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or lines, in order to emphasize the importance, magnitude, power, or some other aspect of the repeated word(s). The repetition can be limited to the first word of each textual segment, or it can be as long as the segment continues. In the following example, the anaphora is somewhere between the two extremes: "I need your touch. I need your smell. I need your taste, your voice; I need you more than life."Under normal circumstances, writers try to vary the words they use in a given section of text, and avoid placing the same words in close proximity to one another, because this can sound clumsy and jarring. However, when anaphora is used, the repetition is so obvious and intentional that it serves to order the entire passage in which it is employed, giving it a songlike or poetic feel. In this example, the author could have chosen to make this list far differently, an example of which follows: "I need your touch, smell, taste, and voice; I need you more than life." This is fine, and entirely grammatical, but it is definitely lacking something. In the first example, the repetition of I need continually brings us back to the depth of feeling the speaker has for each of the things he says he needs. He needs each of these things, and each one is so important that it receives its own individual and complete statement. The pauses required between each repetition also helps the drama of the situation, as you can imagine the speaker taking a breath and summoning all his strength before uttering each item on the list. Note that the third line contains a slight variation, with two items presented together behind a single I need. It is important to remember that such variation is important even when using a device like anaphora, because although the essential structure of the repetition should be maintained to achieve the desired effect, other aspects of the lines can and should be altered to keep the lines flowing, and to make them fresher and less predictable.
Anaphora is a device that you will find only infrequently in regular speech, since it requires a suitably important subject and careful wording to make it effective. It finds its most comfortable home in song and poetry, where the patterned arrangement of leading words is another effect which can be combined with rhyme and a host of others to make the sounds of the words as aesthetically pleasing as the images and sensations the words convey. Political speeches also accommodate anaphora easily, since politicians want to make sure they drive their important ideas deeply into the minds of listeners through repetition and pleasing parallel items.