flowers of rhetoric

diacope a repeated pattern where the final repetition is extended

one repetition from horizon to endless horizon.

terror, heart-stopping terror. Gold! Mountains of glittering gold! two repetitions water, water, crystal blue water. Blood! Blood! An ocean of blood! Beauty, beauty. Such wondrous beauty.

syndeton joining equal ideas with a coordinating conjunction

syndetic one conjunction Darkness stole across the land, through villages and into homes.

polysyndetic all conjunctions Darkness stole across the land and through villages and into homes.

asyndetic no conjunctions Darkness stole across the land, through villages, into homes.

periodic sentence a sentence with many phrases and clauses before the main clause

That night, in the grand hall of the palace, dressed in the finest silks and lace, their feet

gliding over the polished wooden floor, the sound of the orchestra filling the room, the party guests danced the night away. anadiplosis repeating the last word or phrase of a clause at the start of the next

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. The wind whipped up the waves and the waves crashed against the ship and the ship was smashed upon the rocks. The sky turned from blue to violet, from violet to purple, from purple to black.

anaphora starting each sentence or clause with the same words The little man could only stare. He hadn’t dreamed of the bigness of the sea. He hadn’t

dreamed of the blueness of it. He hadn’t thought it would roll like kettledrums. epistrophe ending each sentence or clause with the same words

The big sycamore by the creek was gone. The willow tangle was gone. The little enclave of untrodden bluegrass was gone. The clump of dogwood on the little rise across the creek –

now, that, too, was gone.

transferred epithet an adjective purposefully applied to the wrong noun The traveller wandered along the weary path. The orphans huddled beneath a nervous sky. His cold hands fumbled with the clumsy buttons of his coat.