Anaphora is a powerful literary device, using repetition at the beginning of consecutive sentences, which adds emotion and emphasis to your words. Anaphora is a rhetorical device that repeats a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or verses. Learn how anaphora creates rhythm, emphasis, and memorability with 400+ examples from famous works and songs. Anaphora is a rhetorical device that repeats words at the beginnings of clauses to emphasize ideas and create rhythm. Learn about its functions, usage, and examples from literature, speeches, and songs. Anaphora (sometimes called epanaphora ) is used most effectively for emphasis in argumentative prose and sermons and in poetry, as in these lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “to die, to sleep / To sleep—perchance to dream.”
