In poetry, literature and rhetoric, there are several kinds of repetition where words or certain phrases are repeated for a stronger emphasis by the author. Rhetorical devices should not be confused with syntactical devices, as they are very different writing techniques.

• Repetition is just the simple repetition of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words. This is such a common literary device that it is almost never even noted as a figure of speech.

• Epizeuxis or palilogia is the repetition of a single word, with no other words in between. This is from the Greek words, "Fastening Together"¹

"Words, words, words." (Hamlet)

• Conduplicatio is the repetition of a word in various places throughout a paragraph.

"And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences ... and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world." (George W. Bush)

• Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.²

"This, it seemed to him, was the end, the end of a world as he had known it..." (James Oliver Curwood)

• Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of every clause. Comes from the Greek phrase, "Carrying up or Back".³

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender." (Winston Churchill)

• Epistrophe is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of every clause.

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

• Mesodiplosis is the repetition of a word or phrase at the middle of every clause.

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed..." (Second Epistle to the Corinthians)

• Diaphora is the repetition of a name, first to signify the person or persons it describes, then to signify its meaning.

"For your gods are not gods but man-made idols." (The Passion of Ss. Sergius and Bacchus)

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