Epistrophe

See also: Epistrophe (genus)

Epistrophe (Greek: ἐπιστροφή, "return"), also known as epiphora (and occasionally as antistrophe), is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora. It is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences. It is an extremely emphatic device because of the emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.

Examples

• Where affections bear rule, there reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued. — Thomas Wilson
• ... this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. — Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address
• When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. — The Bible, 1 Cor 13:11
• Senator Mike Mansfield's funeral oration for John F. Kennedy used the phrase "And she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands" five times.
• "Epistrophy," a Thelonious Monk tune that uses an epistrophe of notes.
• "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem." Lyndon B. Johnson in "We Shall Overcome"

External links

• Audio illustrations of epistrophe
• A correlation of epistrophe and antistrophe