Anacoenosis is a figure of speech in which the speaker poses a question to an audience, often with the implication that they share a common interest with the speaker.
The term is from the Greek ἀνακοινοῦν (anakoinoûn), "to communicate, impart".
Examples
- "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could I have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" Isaiah 5:3-4
- The entire speech of Marc Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar forms an extended example of anacoenosis. Marc Anthony begins by building common cause with the audience on stage, addressing them as "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." His speech then poses a number of rhetorical questions to them as part of his refutation of Brutus' words:
- "Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? / When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: / Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;/ And Brutus is an honourable man. / You all did see that on the Lupercal / I thrice presented him a kingly crown, / Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?" (Act 3, Scene 2)
See also
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