From https://literarydevices.net/repetition/:
Repetition is a literary device that involves intentionally using a word or phrase for effect, two or more times in a speech or written work. For repetition to be noticeable, the words or phrases should be repeated within close proximity of each other. Repeating the same words or phrases in a literary work of poetry or prose can bring clarity to an idea and/or make it memorable for the reader.
For example, in the statement “What you own ends up owning you,” own is repeated in two different ways. This repetition gives greater clarity to the meaning of the statement as a whole. Consumers often believe that they have power over what they acquire since they own it. However, the power of ownership over things is misleading in that often our things have power over us. What we acquire can limit and influence our lives in negative ways, such that our things are owning us. Therefore, repetition in this statement creates a clear meaning of the concept as well as making it memorable for the reader.
Writing Repetition
Repetition, as a literary device, functions as a means of reinforcing a concept, thought, or idea for a reader by repeating certain words or phrases. Writers that utilize repetition call attention to what is being repeated. This can generate greater focus on a particular subject and intensify its meaning.
It’s essential that writers bear in mind that their audience may experience fatigue if repetition is overused. As a literary device, repetition should be used deliberately and not just for the sake of repeating a word or phrase. However, when used properly, repetition can be an influential device in writing.
Here are some ways that writers benefit from incorporating repetition into their work:
Sense of Rhythm
Repetition of sounds, words, or phrases allows for a sense of rhythm in a literary work. This is particularly effective when it comes to poetry and speeches. Rhythm affects the pacing and musicality of wording and phrasing. Therefore, repetition creates a sense of rhythm that can change the experience a reader and/or listener has with a literary work.
Create Emphasis
Repeating a word or phrase in a work of poetry or prose calls attention to it on behalf of the reader. This creates emphasis by highlighting the importance of the word or phrase. Therefore, the reader is more likely to consider the meaning of the word or phrase in a deeper way. Additionally, such emphasis on a concept, thought, or idea can be persuasive on behalf of the reader by underscoring its significance.
From https://literaryterms.net/when-and-how-to-use-repetition/:
How to use Repetition
Repetition is a simple and fairly easy device to use in writing. In fact, all you have to do is:
- Choose words that you think are important and worth stressing
- Repeat those words in a way that is memorable. Doing so helps makes them stick out in your audience’s mind and establishes them as meaningful.
- Not overuse it, or it will loose its effect—just use repetition at points when it will have the most impact.
From https://www.thoughtco.com/repetition-language-and-rhetoric-1691887:
Types of Rhetorical Repetition With Examples
- Anadiplosis
Repetition of the last word of one line or clause to begin the next.
“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.”(William Shakespeare, “Richard III”) - Anaphora
Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
“I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize.”(“Weird Science,” 1985) - Antistasis
Repetition of a word in a different or contrary sense.
“A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can’t help himself.”(Henry Morgan) - Commoratio
Emphasizing a point by repeating it several times in different words.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”(Douglass Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” 1979) - Diacope
Repetition that is broken up by one or more intervening words.
“A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.”(Theme song of 1960s TV program “Mr. Ed”) - Epanalepsis
Repetition at the end of a clause or sentence of the word or phrase with which it began.
“Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,
How can thine heart be full of the spring?”(Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Itylus”) - Epimone
Frequent repetition of a phrase or question; dwelling on a point.
“And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the rock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover the actions of the man. …
“And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand, and looked out upon the desolation. … And I lay close within shelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;—but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.”
(Edgar Allan Poe, “Silence”)
“The man who stood, who stood on sidewalks, who stood facing streets, who stood with his back against store windows or against the walls of buildings, never asked for money, never begged, never put his hand out.”(Gordon Lish, “Sophistication”) - Epiphora
Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses.
“She’s safe, just like I promised. She’s all set to marry Norrington, just like she promised. And you get to die for her, just like you promised.”
(Jack Sparrow, The Pirates of the Caribbean) - Epizeuxis
Repetition of a word or phrase for emphasis, usually with no words in between.
“If you think you can win, you can win.”
(William Hazlitt)
“Will you ever be old and dumb, like your creepy parents?
Not you, not you, not you, not you, not you, not you.”(Donald Hall, “To a Waterfowl”) - Gradatio
A sentence construction in which the last word of one clause becomes the first of the next, through three or more clauses (an extended form of anadiplosis).
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”(Henri Bergson) - Negative-Positive Restatement
A method of achieving emphasis by stating an idea twice, first in negative terms and then in positive terms.
“Color is not a human or personal reality; it is a political reality.”(James Baldwin) - Ploce
Repetition of a word with a new or specified sense, or with pregnant reference to its special significance.
“If it wasn’t in Vogue, it wasn’t in vogue.”
(Promotional slogan for Vogue magazine) - Polyptoton
Repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings.
“I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best.”(George W. Bush, April 2006) - Symploce
Repetition of words or phrases at both the beginning and end of successive clauses or verses: a combination of anaphora and epiphora.
“They are not paid for thinking—they are not paid to fret about the world’s concerns. They were not respectable people—they were not worthy people—they were not learned and wise and brilliant people—but in their breasts, all their stupid lives long, resteth a peace that passeth understanding!”(Mark Twain, “The Innocents Abroad,” 1869)
Epistrophe. The counterpart to anaphora, this involves repetition of the last word or phrase across successive phrases, clauses or sentences. There is a good example in the Bible: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Antanaclasis. From the Greek for “bending back,” this is the repetition of a word but using a different meaning each time. Benjamin Franklin used it once when he said: “Your argument is sound, nothing but sound.” In the first instance, he implies the argument is solid; in the second, that it’s just noise.
From https://www.thoughtco.com/repetition-language-and-rhetoric-1691887:
Needless Repetition
When a writer repeats a word or phrase for no meaningful or literary purpose it ends up being a distraction.
- “Moore’s sentence imposed the maximum 24-month sentence under federal sentencing guidelines.” (“Man Sentenced to 24 Months in Paula Deen Extortion Bid.” Savannah Morning News, September 17, 2013)
- My favorite painting is the painting I did of my dog in that painting in my den.
- “Johnson is currently serving as a scholar in residence at Savannah State where he is currently working on a book about his life.” (“Still Sailing on the Winds of Change.” Savannah Morning News, August 23, 2015)
- “If you compare fly-fishing with ice fishing, you will find that fly-fishing is more exciting than ice fishing.” (Stephen Wilbers in “Keys to Great Writing”)
- “Some text editors and reporters exhibit in their copy the kind of phobia that makes us go downstairs ten times to check that the light is off. They have a nagging doubt that the reader has not quite got the point–so they keep going on about it. Once is enough for most pieces of information. When the information is merely incidental itsrepetition is doubly irritating. Here’s an example from The New York Times: A disappointment among the data is that while infant mortality has continued to decline, and is almost at the goal, there remains a great disparity between the rate for whites and for Blacks. The death rate among Black infants is about twice that for whites, Dr. Richmond said. ‘and has been that way for decades.’ The italicized words in the original story tell us nothing. So it boils down to: A disappointment is that while infant mortality has continued to decline, almost to the goal, the death rate among Black infants is about twice that for whites . . .” (Harold Evans, Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers, rev. ed. Pimlico, 2000)
Observations
“[R]epetition skulks under numerous different names, one might almost say aliases, depending on who is repeating what where:
When parrots do it, it’s parrotting.
When advertisers do it, it’s reinforcement.
When children do it, it’s imitation.
When brain-damaged people do it, it’s perseveration or echolalia.
When disfluent people do it, it’s stuttering or stammering.
When orators do it, it’s epizeuxis, ploce, anadiplosis, polyptoton or antimetabole.
When novelists do it, it’s cohesion.
When poets do it, it’s alliteration, chiming, rhyme, or parallelism.
When priests do it, it’s ritual.
When sounds do it, it’s gemination.
When morphemes do it, it’s reduplication.
When phrases do it, it’s copying.
When conversations do it, it’s reiteration.
In sum, the following alphabetical list of 27 terms covers repetition’s commonest guises, though there are undoubtedly more to be found in specialized areas such as classical rhetoric:
Alliteration, anadiplosis, antimetabole, assonance, battology, chiming, cohesion, copying, doubling, echolalia, epizeuxis, gemination, imitation, iteration, parallelism, parrotting, perseveration, ploce, polyptoton, reduplication, reinforcement, reiteration, rhyme, ritual, shadowing, stammering, stuttering
As the numerous names suggest, repetition covers an enormous area. In one sense, the whole of linguistics can be regarded as the study of repetition, in that language depends on repeated patterns.” (Jean Aitchison, “‘Say, Say It Again Sam’: The Treatment of Repetition in Linguistics.” Repetition, ed. by Andreas Fischer. Gunter Narr Verlag, 1994)
“Repetition is a far less serious fault than obscurity. Young writers are often unduly afraid of repeating the same word, and require to be reminded that it is always better to use the right word over again, than to replace it by a wrong one–and a word which is liable to be misunderstood is a wrong one. A frank repetition of a word has even sometimes a kind of charm–as bearing the stamp of truth, the foundation of all excellence of style.” (Theophilus Dwight Hall, “A Manual of English Composition.” John Murray, 1880)
For more examples of repetition, visit:
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