1. These are all either …. Schemes (fancy name for the stylistic patterning of words) Tropes (fancy name for using words in non-literal ways) or Rhetorical Devices (fancy name for tricks of communication) Terms for Week 1

2. Anadiplosis DefinitionExample Repetition of the last word in a line or clause to begin the next "The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it." (Dylan Thomas on Wales)

3. Anaphora DefinitionExample Repetition of a word or phrase at the start of several clauses "I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off." (Policeman in The Big Lebowski)

4. Antimetabole DefinitionExample A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the words in reverse grammatical order (A-B-C, C-B-A) "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us." (Malcolm X)

5. Asyndeton DefinitionExample Omitting conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses Basically, the opposite of polysyndeton "They dove, splashed, floated, splashed, swam, snorted." (James T. Farrell, Young Lonigan)

6. Chiasmus DefinitionExample Two or more clauses being related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point Basically, inverted parallelism "By day the frolic, and the dance by night". Samuel Johnson The Vanity of Human Wishes.

7. Epistrophe DefinitionExample Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." —Emerson

8. Parallelism DefinitionExample Similarity of grammatical structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses "When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative." (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

9. Periphrasis DefinitionExample Substituting a descriptive word or phrase for a proper noun “the big man upstairs” instead of God

10. Polysyndeton DefinitionExample Using many conjunctions Basically, the opposite of asyndeton "We lived and laughed and loved and left." (James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 1939)