Writing Help 129 | - Freelance Writer
Mar 29, 2013 | #1
Using Advanced Rhetorical Devices to Surprise and Delight
Although many rhetorical devices have counterparts with the same name and closely related effects in grammatical and linguistic parlance, some devices actually go against proper grammatical forms, and polysyndeton is such an offender. In fact, this device is employed accidentally by many students when they first learn how to construct sentences and paragraphs properly, because it is a commonplace in everyday speech but usually unacceptable in writing. If you have been censured for using run-on sentences in your writing, you have likely used polysyndeton accidentally (and probably ineffectively). After this article, however, you will be able to employ it intentionally, although you should use it sparingly, and then only in creative writing and persuasive oral prose. It might be a valid device, but using it on your next essay or lab report is not recommended.
The prefix poly, meaning multiple or many, will remind you what this device is all about (as well as helping you differentiate it from asyndeton, which will be covered in an upcoming article). Polysyndeton occurs when multiple conjunctions appear in proximity to each other in a given sentence, linking each successive clause, phrase, or word with a conjunction even if these are completely unnecessary. Read the following example, and note the italicized conjunctions: "The sea, and the stars, and the moonlight made my head spin, leaving me neither breath nor sight nor sense, and yet I was content." In the first part of the sentence we are presented with two ands, and as you know from your earliest teachers, only one and should appear in any given list, and that only before the last listed item. In the second part of the sentence we see nor making two appearances, and since this word functions exactly like or, only in the negative, it too should only appear once, before the last item in the list. Your English teacher or professor might greet this sentence with a red pen, but in this case the technical grammatical error is producing an intentional effect which should not be stricken from the passage.
Polysyndeton acts to change the rhythm of a given sentence, causing us to treat each listed item separately, giving it its due regard and causing us to pause more frequently. The listed items also get drawn more closely together as a result of this device, and so we tend to see them more as various aspects of a single entity and experience rather than as totally separate things. In this case, the joining, highlighting, and slowing effects of polysyndeton are further emphasized by a structural parallel within the sentence between the first and second sections, where and is replaced by nor and further items are stacked into the total experience of the sentence.
Another related use of the device is in the exaggeration of a particularly long list of items, as in the following example: "Can you believe she wanted us to bring yams and butter and bread and eggs and jelly and hotdogs and ice-cream?" Here, the speaker is using the repeated conjunction and to emphasize how very many items are being included on the list, and as the italics suggest, she is likely stressing the word and every time she uses it in order to make the effect even more dramatic. Clearly, the speaker is not pleased about the long list of items she has been asked to bring, and her use of polysyndeton reinforces this impression in an obvious and effective way.
Polysyndeton
Although many rhetorical devices have counterparts with the same name and closely related effects in grammatical and linguistic parlance, some devices actually go against proper grammatical forms, and polysyndeton is such an offender. In fact, this device is employed accidentally by many students when they first learn how to construct sentences and paragraphs properly, because it is a commonplace in everyday speech but usually unacceptable in writing. If you have been censured for using run-on sentences in your writing, you have likely used polysyndeton accidentally (and probably ineffectively). After this article, however, you will be able to employ it intentionally, although you should use it sparingly, and then only in creative writing and persuasive oral prose. It might be a valid device, but using it on your next essay or lab report is not recommended.
The prefix poly, meaning multiple or many, will remind you what this device is all about (as well as helping you differentiate it from asyndeton, which will be covered in an upcoming article). Polysyndeton occurs when multiple conjunctions appear in proximity to each other in a given sentence, linking each successive clause, phrase, or word with a conjunction even if these are completely unnecessary. Read the following example, and note the italicized conjunctions: "The sea, and the stars, and the moonlight made my head spin, leaving me neither breath nor sight nor sense, and yet I was content." In the first part of the sentence we are presented with two ands, and as you know from your earliest teachers, only one and should appear in any given list, and that only before the last listed item. In the second part of the sentence we see nor making two appearances, and since this word functions exactly like or, only in the negative, it too should only appear once, before the last item in the list. Your English teacher or professor might greet this sentence with a red pen, but in this case the technical grammatical error is producing an intentional effect which should not be stricken from the passage.Polysyndeton acts to change the rhythm of a given sentence, causing us to treat each listed item separately, giving it its due regard and causing us to pause more frequently. The listed items also get drawn more closely together as a result of this device, and so we tend to see them more as various aspects of a single entity and experience rather than as totally separate things. In this case, the joining, highlighting, and slowing effects of polysyndeton are further emphasized by a structural parallel within the sentence between the first and second sections, where and is replaced by nor and further items are stacked into the total experience of the sentence.
Another related use of the device is in the exaggeration of a particularly long list of items, as in the following example: "Can you believe she wanted us to bring yams and butter and bread and eggs and jelly and hotdogs and ice-cream?" Here, the speaker is using the repeated conjunction and to emphasize how very many items are being included on the list, and as the italics suggest, she is likely stressing the word and every time she uses it in order to make the effect even more dramatic. Clearly, the speaker is not pleased about the long list of items she has been asked to bring, and her use of polysyndeton reinforces this impression in an obvious and effective way.