JUST A FEW CLASSICAL RHETORICAL SCHEMES
Schemes are intentional deviations from ordinary syntactic patterns. They are effective because they are not ordinary. When a writer overdoes the style, it becomes tedious. Both writers and readers sharpen their skills when they become aware of what these schemes are and how they are used. Good writers do not employ anaphoras, for example, because they think of them; rather, they use them because they help create the desired overall effect. This list is very short. There are scores of these things, all with Greek names.
anaphora / The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or sentences. The effect is usually not achieved until the third item in the series. It is to words what alliteration is to sounds. It tends to create an emotional effect. / “What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country whether they be white or whether they be black.” (Robert Kennedy)antithesis / The balanced pairing of opposites. / It is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.
asyndeton / The absence of normal conjunctions. (no glue) The effect is often, but not always, one of urgency. / … government of the people, by the people, for the people …
chiasmus / A balanced, two-part structure in which the terms of the first half are reversed in the second half. The two halves are separated by some kind of coordination—a conjunction or a mark of punctuation. / All for one and one for all.
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
epistrophe / The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive phrases or sentences. As in anaphora, the effect is usually not achieved until the third item in the series. It is to words what rhyme is to sounds, and its effect is likewise usually emotional. / When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.
polysyndeton / The presence of more conjunctions than normal. (much glue) The effect is usually to lengthen a series, perhaps to make it sound like more than it actually is. / Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
Tonight I have to do homework in chemistry and Spanish and government and calculus and English.
synchises / A balanced two-part structure in which the order of the terms in the first part is maintained in the second. If chiasmus is AB//BA, synchises is AB//AB / … eyes of blue and teeth of pearl.
The life so short, the craft so long to learn.
tricolon (tetracolon) crescens / A series of three coordinate items in which the greatest or most important is at the end. Tetracolon contains four. / I came; I saw; I conquered.
When I saw her new hairdo I snickered, I giggled, I exploded in laughter. Literally
tricolondiminuens / A series of three coordinate items in which the smallest or least important is at the end. Tetracolon contains four. The effect of this anticlimax can be humorous. / I roared my objection. I expressed my dismay. I muttered my disappointment.
zeugma / Two or more parts of a sentence are joined by a common word, often used in different senses, creating a kind of irony. This is a difficult scheme to write (and to find), but a great word for Scrabble. / The classic example, from Pope’s The Rape of the Lock: or stain her honor or her fine brocade.
In one careless move he broke the expensive vase and his fiancée’s heart.
A fireworks display of rhetorical schemes: what can you find? What effect does each one have?
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that 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.