Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields.” The repeated element creates rhythm, builds momentum, and signals that the items form a set.
Anaphora is one of the oldest and most powerful rhetorical figures. It works through accumulation: each repetition adds weight, and the structure tells the reader that more is coming. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech uses anaphora to build from specific hopes to a vision of transformation. The repetition is not redundancy — each clause extends the meaning while the repeated phrase binds them together.
In poetry, anaphora structures entire poems. Walt Whitman’s catalogs repeat opening phrases to unify sprawling lists of images. Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” uses “who” to launch each section of its litany. The figure gives free verse a structural principle that substitutes for meter — the repetition creates rhythm without fixed feet.
In prose, anaphora is effective in passages that need emphasis, momentum, or emotional build. It appears in speeches, manifestos, persuasive essays, and the climactic paragraphs of arguments. It risks becoming mechanical if overused or applied to items that don’t deserve the emphasis — three anaphoric clauses can be powerful; eight can be tiresome.
Anaphora is the mirror of epistrophe (repetition at the end of clauses) and combines with it to produce symploce (repetition at both beginning and end).
Related terms
- parallelism — the broader principle that anaphora exemplifies
- rhetoric — the discipline that studies anaphora as a figure of emphasis
- figurative language — anaphora is a figure of speech