Anadiplosis Examples: Anadiplosis for Students and Children

Anadiplosis – the difficulty in pronouncing the word itself scares a normal reader. But it is not a big deal – it is a stylistic device, often used and utilized by politicians in their essays and even by CEO’s in their sales pitches in order to intensify the curiosity and emotions of the readers. In simpler terms, it is a rhetoric device in which the last word or phrase of the preceding clause is repeated at the beginning of the next sentence as you can see in lines, ‘Strength through unity, unity through faith’. The origin of the word anadiplosis comes from two Greek words which mean “to reduplicate’ or to ‘double back again’. It is a powerful device that enables us to sharpen our eloquence and make speech memorable. It is extensively used in literature, especially in poems and in speeches, and you can find it in biblical quotes too. As experts say, in literature, anadiplosis takes a reader from pits to heights. It is very effective in the hands of a speaker who tries to instill hope in a group of people about a glorious present. Anadiplosis is also used to emphasize specific words as in the case of ‘Rhoda Book worked hard on her manuscript, a manuscript that had nearly cost her sanity.’

Examples Of Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis From Literature

• “Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task.” – Henry James
• “All service ranks the same with God, With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we’ – Robert Browning in ‘Pippa Passes’
• “For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,………’ – John Milton in ‘Lycidas’
• ‘Queeg: ‘Aboard my ship, excellent performance is standard. Standard performance is sub-standard. Sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist.’ – Herman Wouk in ‘The Caine Mutiny’.
• ‘The years to come seemed waste of breath, waste of breath the years behind – William Butler Yeats in ‘An Irish Airman Foresees his Death’.
• ‘The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it.’ – Dylan Thomas on ‘Wales’
• ‘He retained his virtues amidst all his – misfortunes — misfortunes which no prudence could foresee or prevent.’ – Francis Bacon
• “The love of wicked men converts to fear; That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both To worthy danger and deserved death.” – Richard II by William Shakespeare.
• “The mountains look on Marathon – And Marathon looks on the sea…’ – ‘The Isles of Greece’ by Lord Byron.
• ‘My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain.’ – ‘Richard III’ by William Shakespeare
• This 19th century poem by Reverend M. Sheeleigh has anadiplosis in all the sixteen lines,
  ‘Long I looked into the sky,
  Sky aglow with gleaming stars,
  Stars that stream their courses high,
  High and grand, those golden cars,
  Cars that ever keep their track,
  Track untraced by human ray,
  Ray that zones the zodiac,
  Zodiac with milky-way,
  Milky-way where worlds are sown,
  Sown like sands along the sea,
  Sea whoso tide and tone e’er own,
  Own a feeling to be free,
  Free to leave its lowly place,
  Place to prove with yonder spheres,
  Spheres that trace athrough all space,
  Space and years–unspoken years’.

Anadiplosis From Quotes, Observations And Sentences

• ‘The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story!’ – Movie ‘Gladiator’, 2000
• ‘Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.’ – Frank Oz as Yoda in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menance.
• ‘Only the brave deserve the fair and the fair deserve Jaeger.’ – advertising slogan for Jaeger Sportswear.
• ‘Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution.’ – George W. Bush while addressing Congress and the Nation.
• ‘Without a healthy economy we can’t have a healthy society and without a healthy society the economy won’t stay healthy for long.’ – Margaret Thatcher.
• ‘Don’t you surrender! Suffering breeds character; character breeds faith; in the end faith will not disappoint. You must not surrender….’ – Jesse Jackson.
• ‘America’s Al-Qaida policy wasn’t working because our Afghanistan policy wasn’t working. And our Afghanistan policy wasn’t working because our Pakistan policy wasn’t working.’ – Condoleezza Rice.
• ‘Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action.’ – Malcolm X.
• ‘If you are going to play wolf, play wolf like the real thing’.
• ‘I would but run away. Run away, perhaps today. Perhaps today I will. I will run away’.
• ‘Will you come with me? Come with me to a better place. A place where we can be together forever, forever where we can do what we know must be done’.
• ‘Talent is an adornment, an adornment is also a concealment’ – Nietzsche
• ‘The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead.’ – Ann Landers.
• ‘Labour and care are rewarded with success, success produces confidence, confidence relaxes industry……’ – Samuel Johnson

Anadiplosis From Bible

• ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; …’ – King James Version
• ‘The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.’ – ‘The Rise of the Flood and the Destruction of Life, 7:17, part, 18-21, 24
• ‘We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope, and hope maketh man not ashamed.’ – Romans 5:3
• ‘ ……… you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love’ – II Peter 1:5 – 7

As said earlier, anadiplosis stresses the repeated word or idea to create a reinforcing effect in the sentence, such as, ‘This treatment plant has a record of uncommon reliability, a reliability envied by every other water treatment facility on the coast’. You can notice the way the main point becomes clear by repeating it twice in close succession. It is used in a series, either for the sake for beauty or to create an effect of logical progression. While using anadiplosis, there can be no doubt about the focus of your thought, as this fundamental device of figurative language powers up sentences and brings life to them.