Sunday, February 10, 2013

Rhetoric - symploce



symploce [ˈsɪmploʊsi] n.

1.) The repetition of one word at the beginning and of another at the end of two successive clauses. Symploce combines anaphora and epistrophe (Garner's Modern American Usage 3rd Edition).

Etymology: Late Latin symplocē, an adoption of Greek συµπλοκή, an interweaving, from σύν, together, similarly, alike, + πλέκειν, to twine, plait, weave. Cf. French symploque.

"All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me
      I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me."
("Song of the Open Road", Walt Whitman, 1856).

(Frau vor untergehender Sonne, Caspar David Friedrich, ~1818)

3 comments:

Poke The Rock said...

wow, I actually learned something or well you reminded me of something I should have known:

„Was ist der Toren höchstes Gut? Geld!
Was verlockt selbst die Weisen? Geld!“
„Alles geben die Götter, die unendlichen,
Ihren Lieblingen ganz,
Alle Freuden, die unendlichen,
Alle Schmerzen, die unendlichen, ganz.“

Go Goethe, you are the man!

A Beer for the Shower said...

A great writing technique if pulled off properly.

I wonder what would happen if we wrote an entire novel this way? Oh, right, it'd be terrible.

E. said...

I love Whitman's "Song of the Open Road". I had used part of it in one of my posts some months ago. Thanks for sharing!

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