Using Anaphora
In poetry or prose, when your lines open with the same repeated phrase you gain momentum.
Photo by Yoksel Zok from Unsplash
When he penned the “Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson itemized the offenses of King George III against the colonists.
Each of his sentences begins with, “He has.”
He has refused his Assent to Laws…
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws…
He has refused to pass other Laws …
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual…
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly…
He has refused for a long time…
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither …
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies…
He has affected to render the Military independent …
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction…
In the next section of the “Declaration of Independence,” Jefferson uses anaphora again, this time repeating the word “For” followed by a participle:
For cutting…
For imposing…
For depriving…
For transporting…
For abolishing…
Next, Jefferson resumes the “He has” litany for five sentences. To end his writing, he includes another litany about the people of the colonies. He writes, “we have” three times followed by past tense verbs:
We have warned…
We have reminded…
We have appealed…
Repetitions have hypnotic power.
Walt Whitman, another American, who was famously involved as a nurse for the Northern troops during the Civil War, used the power of anaphora in many of his poems.
Here is an excerpt from “American Feuillage“:
AMERICA always!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath’d Cuba!
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of square miles;
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy!
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows;
Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes;
Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,
All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed,
Four phrases start with “always” and then Whitman breaks for three that start with “the” and then four more that start with “always” again. The power of repetition works well with this change and return.
Reading these words, I am passionate, too, as Whitman was that a united and glorious diversity will hold during the already divisive times we are experiencing this month.
Try your hand at writing a litany using anaphora, the swing back at each line’s opening to include more and more detail down the page.