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A Reduction of the first half of Copy and Compose, A Guide to Prose Style
by Winston Weathers and Otis Winchester (Prentice-Hall, 1969).
Basic Sentence Patterns— We’ll begin with a number of basic sentence patterns, ranging from the most succinct to the
elaborate compound-complex. To understand what they do and how they do it, first COPY THE MODEL
SENTENCE EXACTLY—word for word, including every comma, dash, period, etc. Then to make this sentence
form part of your writer's stock, COMPOSE a sentence of similar length, structure, and order that is at the same time
entirely original.
01 Loose
“I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore
myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a
walking-stick, and put six very bright colored chalks in my pocket.” —G. K. Chesterton, A Piece of Chalk
Express the main thought at the outset and add details, modifying and compounding is a source of rhythm.
This can be diffuse, anticlimactic and overworked.
02 Periodic
“Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts
any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nature
Delay completing the main thought until the end or near it. Delaying phrases and clauses postpones it. Not
parallelism of prepositional phrases. Complex sentences easily written as periodic; compound sentences can't
but their clauses can. Loose sentences can be changed to periodic by adding or moving forward a modifier,
inverting the sentence, or beginning sentence with “It was.”
03 Inverted
“Immoral Ovid was, but he had high standards in art.” —Gilbert Highet, Poets in a Landscape
Subject-verb-complement, is usual order, almost always with declarative sentences. To shift emphasis in
sentence alter the order of basic elements. Reader is surprised to encounter difference in order. End position
of sentence is the most emphatic, first is slightly less, middle is certainly least. When complement or verb is
the most important element consider inverting. Careful, it can be awkward.
04 Elliptical (the virtual sentence)
“Six o'clock. A cold summer's evening.” —William Sansom, Eventide
Fragmentary statement that is virtually complete, because of what is said elsewhere or suggested. Good for
dialogue, description intros, conclusions, transitions and even emphasis. Use infrequently.
05 Simple
“Centuries passed.” —Gilbert Highet, Poets in a Landscape
“London frightened him.”
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Is surprisingly rare and almost always striking. If you wish to be forcefully clear and direct, the briefest
sentence alone is emphatic; used together with longer sentences it is a basis for sharp contrasts.
06 Simple - Anticipation
“After skirting the river for three or four miles, I found a rickety footbridge.” —Vladimir Nabokov,
Conclusive Evidence
“Even after dark the touch of the wind has the warmth of flesh.”
“Compared with that of the Taoists and the far eastern Buddhists, the Christian attitude towards nature has
been curiously insensitive and often downright domineering and violent.”
The part of speech a phrase modifies determines its location to some extent. Phrases at the beginning operate
as mild anticipation, in the middle as interruption, at the end as after thought. Connection to the sentence can
be by connecting word and punctuation or by punctuation alone.
07 Simple - Interruption
“A barn, in day, is a small night.” —John Updike, The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood
“The thought of her was like champagne itself!”
“You, the listener, sit opposite me.”
First has brief phrase interrupted by a connecting word, "in," and enclosed in commas, partly for emphasis
and partly because it does interrupt the syntactic flow of the sentence. The second is so mild as to hardly be
noticed. The third uses appositive phrase.
08 Simple - Afterthought
“How beautiful to die of a broken heart, on paper.” —Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus
“There are our young barbarians all at play.”
“The steadiest winds are the trades, blowing diagonally toward the equator from the northeast to the
southwest.” —Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us
Any syntactical subordinate thought that comes after the main thought. It may be dramatic and significant, or
casual and superfluous. The first actually has two such phrases. The second is so mild it needs no punctuation.
The third consists of two phrases, and needs a comma partly because of its length and complexity, also the
writer wanted to express a single afterthought by using several phrases.
09 Elaborated Simple
“The gulls went in slanting flight up the wind toward the grey desolate east.” —Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
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Once you begin modifying the various parts of a simple sentence by adding phrases at the beginning, middle
or end, you find the basic pattern can be extensively elaborated without loss of lucidity. Remember a primer
style is less to be afraid of than a pretentious one, for clarity is the writer's first objective. You might compose
a second version of the same sentence in which you modify the subject or use a compound subject or in
which you modify the subject instead of the verb.
10 Compound
“The great tragic artists of the world are four, and three of them are Greek.” —Edith Hamilton, The Greek
Way
Coordinates grammatically independent but logically related thoughts. Develop vocabulary of coordinators—
and, or, but, however, for, nor, so, consequently, therefore, then, still, yet, otherwise. Develop also a
vocabulary of punctuation. Semicolons, commas, dashes and colons. Some coordinators need a semicolon
before and a comma after: also, however, nevertheless, therefore, consequently, hence, furthermore, indeed,
still, then. Be sure clauses joined by conjunctions are of equal importance and clearly belong in the same
sentence.
11 Compound - Coordinator only
“We would walk out with a bottle of pop apiece and sometimes the pop would backfire up our noses and
hurt.”
With no punctuation this is rare and risky. Theoretically none of the clauses are emphasized. In practice the
final is usually a little more punchy. When you want to fuse clauses into single undifferentiated statements this
is good.
12 Compound - Punctuation only
“In the morning it was sunny, the lake was blue.”
Compounds are almost always separated by some form of punctuation. A comma separates and emphasizes
slightly final clauses. Used when clauses are short and similar in form. A dash points up a hesitation or delay.
A semicolon is standard coordinating mark, it emphasizes the entire sentence. Semicolons are a bit too heavy
and formal to be used very often. A colon is even more formal, suggesting that what follows is a distinct
addition to or explanation of what came before. When the relationship of clauses is so clear that no
coordinator is necessary, use punctuation alone to link it. Emphasizes slightly separateness.
13 Compound - Elaborated
“We were somewhere near Sorrento; behind us lay the long curve of faint-glimmering lights on the Naples
shore; ahead was Capri.” —George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea
Clauses can be increased from the usual two to three and even more, the elements within the clauses can be
inverted or compounded and modified in different ways. The alternatives of correct punctuation and effective
coordinators are many. The first here is simple; the long second is not only inverted but also contains several
modifiers; the third is as brief as possible and inverted as well.
14 Complex - Anticipation (Subordinates and punctuation)
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“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” —Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey
The thought of lesser importance, subordinated in a complex sentence which consists of one independent and
one or more dependent clauses. Always phrase the main thought as an independent and subordinate details as
dependent clauses. Never obscure the main thought with unnecessary subordinate details or by sequence of
subordinate clauses each one dependent upon the one before. Subordinators are: who, whom, where, which,
that, what. Some more surely distinguish dependent from main clause: although, as, as if, so, so that, because,
before, after, if, since, that, until, till, unless, when, where. Some (as, so, while) can lead to ambiguity. Be
careful.
15 Complex - Anticipation (Subordinates only)
“Whenever people are short on ideas they tend to use long words.”
If Anticipation (dependent clause) is short and relationship to the independent clause is obvious, consider
omitting the usual comma. Momentum is improved if you exploit the principle of open punctuation whenever
ease of reading and understanding is not likely to be affected. This could have been “ideas, they” but brevity
would be lost. Clauses are very closely related, and brevity of anticipation makes it easier.
16 Complex - Interruption (Subordinates and punctuation)
“Richard’s crown, which he wore to the last, was picked out of a bush and placed upon the victor’s head.”
—Winston Churchill, The Birth of Britain
There is an advantage in placing dependent clauses within the sentence is it would weaken the initial effect as
anticipation or assume too much importance as an afterthought. By doing this you can place an important
item (perhaps the subject) at the beginning and end (object) in most emphatic positions. If the dependent
clause is fairly incidental consider this, but even if it is important it can be pointed up by proper punctuation.
Of all complex sentences this is perhaps the most subtle--suspended thought, and the periodicity conferred by
interruption.
17 Complex - Interruption (Punctuation only)
“This tree, I learned quite early, was exactly my age, was, in a sense, me.”
If the relationship of the dependent to independent clause is unmistakably clear, you can drop the
subordinator and use punctuation. Be sure it is really an interruption. Restrictive clause is essential to the sense
of the sentence and can't be separated from what it modifies, should not be isolated with punctuation, but a
non-restrictive clause, although it adds a lot is nevertheless incidental and should be punctuated. The
interruption must be surrounded by marks of some kind, in a pair except where first the first comma or mark
is replace by a conjunction. Usually the longer and more interjectional, the stronger the punctuation. Commas
are mild, parentheses are decisive, dashes emphasize, semicolons and colons are rare to enclose an
interruption, only for very special purposes.
18 Complex - Restrictive Interruption (Subordinate only)
“All works of art which deserve their name have a happy end.” —Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper
Not really an "interruption" here, but it does come between subject and verb-complement. Usually such is
identified by a subordinator like the “which.” Too many can make the prose tedious (especially “that” and
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“which”). When relationship is clear you might suppress the subordinator, but this takes an acute judgment
and ear. Better off looking for the right subordinator.
19 Complex - Afterthought (Subordinator and punctuation)
“Charles had decided definitely on Princeton, even though he would be the only boy entering that year from
St. Regis.”
Because of its position in the sentence, the dependent clause is often more emphatic as an afterthought,
especially when punctuated with something stronger than a comma.
20 Complex - Afterthought (Subordinator only)
“The trees stood massively in all their summer foliage spotted and grouped upon a meadow which sloped
gently down from the big white house.”
If the afterthought is fairly short and not decidedly subordinate to the independent clause, punctuation alone
might effectively mark the dependent clause. If it were clearly restrictive, like “Artistic temperament is a
disease that afflicts amateurs,” don’t consider commas. “Which sloped...” even though restrictive it has only
the subordinator. Separateness was being played down here.
21 Elaborated Complex
“Early in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting out amidst the pinewoods around the
pond, imparted a brightness like sunshine to the landscape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were
breaking through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here and there.” —Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The number of dependent clauses can be increased, can take different forms, and positions. Here, it is
anticipation, a complex subject, interruption, verb and modifier, “especially,” “here," are afterthoughts. But
perfectly clear because nothing is abstract, it is a mailer-of-fact observation, simple comparison, simple
vocabulary.
22 Compound - Complex
“Years ago the British used to run a flying-boat down through Africa, and although it was a slow and
sometimes rather bumpy journey I can remember no flight that was quite so pleasant.” —Alan Moorehead,
No Room in the Ark
A combination of two patterns; coordinates and subordinates several thoughts. At least contains two
independent clauses, and one dependent. Here the dependent clause is all the more subordinated, sandwiched
as it is between main thoughts. It could've been two sentences, but using a compound-complex can indicate
more precisely the relationship among a number of details.
23 Elaborated Compound - Complex
“Late one September night, as I sat reading, the very father of all waves must have flung himself down
before the house, for the quiet of the night was suddenly overturned by a gigantic, tumbling crash and an
earthquake rumbling; the beach so shook in its dune that the flame of a lamp quivered and pictures jarred on
the wall.” —Henry Beston- The Outermost House
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This form represents the upper limit of the sentence spectrum. Here it has one dependent clause, five
independent clauses, and another dependent clause.
24 - Representative series - Two part
“How are we to find the knowledge of reality in the world without, or in the shifting, fluid world within?”
—Archibald MacLeish, Why Do We Teach Poetry?
One must decide on a number of examples, series of modifications, series of qualifications, etc. If you wish to
represent totality, certainty, absoluteness, then choose two. When you use two, the voice becomes highly
confident.
25 Representative series - Three part
“All history teaches us that of these questions that we think the pressing ones will be transmuted before they
are answered, that they will be replaced by others, and that the very process of discovery will shatter the
concepts that we today use to describe our puzzlement.” —J. Robert Oppenheimer, Prospects in the Arts and
Sciences
Less dogmatic and absolute that a series of two. Use when you wish to indicate reasonable, judicious and
normal attitudes toward a subject. This type is the most frequently used, because most times this is the way
that a writer wants to appear.
26 Representative series - Four part
“London was hideous, vicious, cruel and above all overwhelming.” —Henry James, Italian Hours
“They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take
pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless necessity lays about them with a stick,
they will even stand still.”
To indicate a more emotional, human-oriented, or subjective attitude. The series of involvement. Units may
be words as in the first example, or phrases as in the second.
27 Representative series - Five or more parts
“There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the
public.” —William Hazlitt, On Living for One’s Self
Although the four part is human, each additional lengthening increases the attitude, begins to add elements of
humor and even absurdity.
28 Repetition - Key word
“A friend in power is a friend lost.”
“If your readers dislike you, they will dislike what you say.” —F. L. Lucas, Style
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“Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many
other things.”
One may repeat the noun, verb or adjective. Its effectiveness derives from a reader encountering a keyword
after intervening words have occurred. Frequently has aphoristic qualities, therefore valuable when expressing
something to be considered indisputable, important or a memorable truth.
29 Repeated-word - Epizeuxis
“For to mean anything high enough and hard enough is to fail, fail joyously.” —John Ciardi, “Manner of
Speaking”
“Surrounded by her listeners, she talked in a slow circle in her fine deep voice, the word ʻperceptionʼ
occurring again and again and yet again like the brass ring the children snatch for as their hobby horses whirl
by.”
“They hire English nannies, if possible, always nice middling women with sensible hairdos, sensible clothes,
and sensible shoes.” —Tom Wolfe, The Nanny Mafia
Repetition of the same word in close proximity. Note the two sets in the first example above. Frequently gives
the sentence especial rhythmic quality.
30 Repeated-Word - Extended repetition
“All the more strange, then, is it that we should wish to know Greek, try to know Greek, feel forever drawn
back to Greek, and be forever making up for some notion of the meaning of Greek, though from what
incongruous odds and ends, with what slight resemblance to the real meaning of Greek, who shall say?” —
Virginia Woolf, “On Not Knowing Greek”
“The Clinton team games the truth, scripts the truth, semantically parses the truth, dribbles out the truth a
coffee spoon at a time, shifts the truth.”
—Maureen Dowd (NY Times)
Repeat can be extended, becoming something like a refrain or chorus. Here it is nailed together with “Greek.”
It suggests a certain amount of compulsiveness, weary vexation, anger, or even irritation: valuable to use in
criticism, argument, and disputation.
31 Repositioned Adjective
“Salisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge will bear a discussion antiquarian, picturesque, and
philosophical.” —William Hazlitt, On Going on a Journey
“Consider what dream must have dominated the builders of the Pyramids—dreams geometrical, dream
funereal, dreams of resurrection, dreams of outdoing the pyramid of some other pharaoh!” —George
Santayana, Soliloquies in English
Move a word from its normal syntactical position; easiest with an emphasize the adjectives themselves. Copy
this trying one or more adjectives after the noun they describe, and one to use unusual adjectives and
repetition. Also write straight and rewrite with adjectives moved to unusual places.
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32 Rhetorical question
“Are they not criminals, books that have wasted our time and sympathy; are they not he most insidious
enemies of society, corruptors, defilers, the writers of false books, faked books, books that fill the air with
decay and disease?” —Virginia Woolf, How Should One Read a Book?
This quote uses a rhetorical question in the negative way. “Is the sky blue?” The context suggest yes. Or “Is
not the sky blue?” to demand yes. Negative form is less subtle in its request for agreement instead of the
simple, “The sky is blue,” for a stylistic conversion.
33 Interrupted - Explanation
“They have observed—that is to say, they have really seen--nothing. How then does a man—be he good or
bad—big or little—a philosopher or a fribble—St. Paul or Horace Walpole—make his memoirs
interesting?”
“They have observed—that is to say, they have really seen—nothing.”
—Arnold Bennett, The Author's Craft
Used two ways. Interruption can draw attention to that element that follows. Frequently acts as a brake on
rhythm and consequently can indicate termination. The concluding sentence in a paragraph or whole
composition is frequently of an interrupted nature--so as to put on the brake verbally. Interruptions can be
any length, and may be of a complex nature, made up of various separate items. In example two above,
deliberate use to create stylistic suspense.
34 Interruption -The Aside
“Even mathematical solutions (though here I speak with trembling) can have aesthetic beauty.”
—F. L. Lucas, Style
35 Structured series - Balance
“An event may seem to us amusing or pathetic.”
“He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life.” —Paul Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith
“If we wish life to be a system, this may be a nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, it is essential.”
Take care that the units are the same length, are equalized into a definite structure. Such a structure having
units the same length is called an isocolon. Makes the series more noticeable, more controlled, more emphatic.
When there are two only, the resulting equal-length structure is called a balance. It can be words as in the first
example, or phrases as in the second, or clauses as in the third.
36 Compound - Balance
“The room was solid and rich; it was established and quiet.” —Robert Alien Durr, The Last Days of H. L.
Mencken
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Two balance structures can be joined in one sentence to create amore elaborate balance.
37 Structured series - Tricolon
“He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man.” —Thomas Jefferson, A letter
on the character of George Washington
“Creation, property, enjoyment form a sinister trinity in the human mind.” —E. M. Forster, My Wood
Most frequently used form of the structured series. Three part with units of equal length. It is always dramatic.
It effects a dramatic presentation of the reasonable and judicious position. It can be overused. Make sure you
want the series given extra emphasis and attention that the tricolon will confer.
38 Structured series - Four part
“Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally considered as making a book valuable, were
utterly wanting to him.”
Here the first two words or polysyllabic, the last two are monosyllabic—exact structure prevails. This projects
the “Human being.” Series is also given special importance, particularly emphasis.
39 Symmetrical
“Effeminacy is fatal.” —Dixon Wecter, The Hero in America
“Imagination means individuality.” —Stephen Spender, The Imagination in the Modern World
In addition to balancing units of a two-part series you can also write a sentence in which one part is balanced
against another by presenting units of equal length on either side of a central verb. It is usually quite short.
The second above is even more balanced than the first, the words are more similar--starting with the same
and ending with the same sounds. Emphatic and frequently aphoristic. Often used, because of its startling and
abbreviated structural nature, in opening positions at the beginning of paragraphs or compositions, usually
followed by explanations and details. Great for declaration and premises, but something must follow that
amplifies.
40 Negative-Positive
“A tragic writer does not have to believe in God, but he must believe in man.” —Joseph Wood Krutch, The
Modern Temper
“He suddenly saw the fields, not as solid blank objects covered with grass or useful crops and dotted with
trees, but as color in astonishing variety and subtlety of gradation.”
Two-part series in negative/positive form: not this, but that. Black/white, no/yes fashion. When you wish to
give certainty and second part special importance. If it were "may be […] but must believe," the force is lost.
This is a compounded two-part series. The first above combines negative-positive with key word repetition.
The second above is negative/positive with interior two-part series.
41 Positive-Negative
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“I was told about missionaries, but never about pirates; I was familiar with hummingbirds, but I had never
heard of fairies.” —Edmund Gosse, Father and Son
“Reason can dissect but cannot originate; she can adopt, but cannot create; she can modify, but cannot
find.”
High tension sentences created by presenting two items in positive negative order. When the positive is first,
the sentence can take on a negative tone; more complaining or criticizing. If the articles here were reversed,
complaint and criticism would have been greatly softened.
42 Antithesis
“The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.” —George Santayana, Reason in Society
“Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.” —Daniel Webster,
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson
Extreme tension can be achieved in sentences by presenting balanced elements in direct opposition to each
other. This emphasizes discrepancies and contrasts, magnifies unlikely relationships. The first above
emphasizes the relationship between seen and unseen parts, achieved intensity by balancing both adjectives
and nouns. The second has a three-part series of antitheses; suggests totality of conviction, and that this
totality takes into consideration all polarities.
43 Antimetabole
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” —George Orwell, “Politics and the
English Language”
“Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”
—George W. Bush, Presidential Address 9-20-01
“You can take the cowboy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the cowboy.”
—Message on a T-shirt
“The early part of life should teach us to harden what is soft within us, and the latter part should teach us to
soften what has become hard.” —Sidney Harris, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
A two-part series when two elements constitute one part of a balance and are then reversed to compose the
second part of a balance. This reversal of parts in a balance, involving exact words, is called antimetabole. It's
powerfully intense, and is used on rare occasions.
44 Asyndeton
“He has had his intuition, he has made his discovery, he is eager to explore it, to reveal it, to fix it down.” —
Joyce Carey, Art and Reality
“We hear the hum of life in the fields; a horse champs his bit; a butterfly circles and settles.”
—Virginia Woolf, The Novels of Turgenev
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You can stylistically modify any series by manipulating the conjunctions. Usually you write the series with one
conjunction, which comes between the last two items. If you omit that conjunction, you get a more definite
feel of a single event or action or condition. Sense of time is speeded up, and gives the impression that you're
talking about one event occurring all at once. With conjunctions these sentences are more ordinary; without
they are more compressed, more instantaneous, more dramatic.
45 Polysyndeton
“It was a hot day and the sky was very bright and blue and the road was white and dusty.” —Ernest
Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and
hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”
The opposite of asyndeton; an abundance of conjunctions. Stretch what you're saying over a longer time and
enable the reader to distinguish each item of a series from the others. The second example above calls
attention to the human and emotional (especially with the use of along series), the virtues are not simply of a
single moment.
46 Anaphora
“The reason why I object to Dr. Johnson's style is, that there is no discrimination, no selection, no variety in
it.” —William Hazlitt, “On Familiar Style”
“Art, for most Americans, is a very queer fish—it can’t be reasoned with, it can’t be bribed, it can’t be doped
out or duplicated; above all, it can’t be cashed in on.”
A series of any length; begin each item with the same word or words. Gives a pounding emphasis to each
item. Anaphora deepens, as more and more words are repeated at the beginning of each item.
47 Epistrophe
“To the good American many subjects are sacred; sex is sacred, women are sacred, children are sacred,
business is sacred, America is sacred, Masonic lodges and college clubs are sacred.” —George Santayana,
"Character and Opinion in the United States”
“Raphael points wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus
sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.”
End each item in a series with the same word or words. A dramatic way of showing common denominator
that unites diverse series. This forces the reader to an inescapable awareness of each item. If: "Many are
sacred; sex, women..." etc. Then none are sacred nor does each item have punch. Valuable when presenting a
number of items with a common characteristic.
48 Symbloce
“I was born an American; I will live an American, I shall die an American.” —Daniel Webster, Speech, 17
July 1850
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Combine anaphora and epistrophe by beginning and ending each item with the same word.
49 Anadiplosis
“And there they have it, the color called Landlord’s Brown, immune to time, flood, tropic heat, arctic chill,
punk rumbles, slops, blood, leprotic bugs, cockroaches the size of mice, mice the size of rats, rats the size of
Airdales, and lumpenprole tenants.”
“We have lost our concern with the ends because we have lost our touch with reality and we have lost our
touch with reality because we are estranged from the means to reality which is the poem--the work of art.”
“This is great poetry, and it is dramatic; but besides being poetic and dramatic, it is something more.”
“Passing bells are ringing all the world over. All the world over and every hour, someone is parting company
with all his aches and ecstasies.”
Ending one item in the series with the word that begins the next item. A greater continuity and a slower
tempo. Additional emphasis to the words involved. This is not limited to series, any sentence that has two or
more phrases can use it. Many times it is muted, more suggested than actually achieved in the technical sense.
The third example above demonstrates that this may occur at the end of one sentence and the beginning of
the next.
50 Circular (Epanalepsis)
“Across the United States of America, from New York to California and back, glazed, again, for many
months of the year there streams and sings for its heady supper a dazed and prejudiced procession of
European lecturers, scholars, sociologists, economists, writers, authorities on this and that and even, in
theory on the U.S.A.”
Beginning and ending a clause or sentence with the same word. This example boasts a complex series and
high diction as well.
51 Modified Circular
“His illness was beyond all hope of healing before anyone realized that he was ill.” —James Baldwin- Notes of
a Native Son
“America had to be made before it could be lived in, and that making took centuries, took extraordinary
energies and bred an attitude of life that is peculiarly American.”
“Different ages have answered the question differently.”
Sometimes a circular sentence uses modified epanelepsis, using not the same word, but a form of it.
Whenever you use a variant form of a word you are using the device of polyptoton. This is especially effective
if there is one central them a writer wishes to push. The third example above creates an aphoristic quality,
closing the sentence off, rounding it into completeness, as though to say there is nothing beyond this.
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52 Figurative
“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”
“Ah, what a mistress, this Etna with her strange winds prowling round her like Circe’s panthers, some black
some white.”
When an idea is presented in a most intense manner with some highly picturable object, person, event, but
comparisons are made between different worlds of experience. Tenor--the idea or subject actually spoken
about. Vehicle--the object, person Ir. event introduced for the sake of startling comparison.
53 Figurative (Metaphor)
“Nay to conclude upon a note of grandeur, it is by ignorance alone that we advance through the rough seas
of this our mortal life.”
Less explicit than the simile is the metaphor, wherein the words “like” or “as” are omitted. The figure
becomes less explicit, becomes stylistically more effective and intense. It may be presented: “Our mortal life is
a rough sea,” or even more subtle “rough...etc.” this form of metaphor is sometimes called a condensed
metaphor.
54 Figurative (Reification)
“The winds that scattered the Spanish Armada blew English literature, which had been merely smoldering
for generations, into a blaze of genius.”
Comparing an intangible subject, with a very tangible phenomenon. Reification means making whatever you
are talking about into a thing. The tenor is abstract, the vehicle is concrete.
55 Figurative (Personification)
“Far off, a little yellow plane scuttles down a runway, steps awkwardly into the air, then climbs busily,
learning grace.”
Another way of establishing a figure is to compare a non-living or inanimate subject with something alive. A
figure whose vehicle is living and animate is called personification.
56 Complex Figurative
“When the struggle with somnolence has been fought out and won, when the world is all-covering darkness
and close-pressed silence, when the tobacco suddenly takes on fresh vigor and fragrance and the books lie
strewn about the table, then it seems as though all the rubbish and floating matter of the day's thoughts have
poured away and only the bright, clear, and swift current of the mind remains, flowing happily and without
pediment.”
A sentence may contain several separate figures, some of extended length.
Copy and Compose
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57 Alliterative
“All beauty comes from beautiful flood and beautiful brain.”
“A moist young moon hung above the mist of a neighboring meadow.”
“Even if the facts are false, they are still very strange.”
Alliterative sentences can make a statement unified and more memorable. They are more easily remembered.
There is a limit of course, five is pushing it. The secret of good alliteration is to limit the number of accented
words, avoid too heavy a concentration. Many times a few consonants can be alliterative in one sentence. It
can create a delightful effect as one sound is contrasted with others.
58 Rhythmical
“He is capable of being shown of what consciousness consists.”
“Curiosity is a form of desire.”
Certain sentences have a more obvious cadence. It could become monotonous and stupefying if it were the
prevailing rhythm for too long. Three part rhythms can be used in contrast with two-part rhythms in passages
of writing that need to "sing forth", yet cannot be maintained with one single rhythmic form.
59 Metrical
“The sentence is a single cry.”
“Hitch your wagon to a star.”
“The world is very different now.”
On rare occasions you may wish to make a sentence actually metrical. 1-2-3-4 beat or march step is the most
common form of the metrical sentence. These are highly memorable because they are almost singable.
60 Metrical (Varied beat)
“May in Venice is better than April, but June is best of all.”
“He was the man that cannot steer, that cannot splice, that ditches the work on dark nights; that, aloft, holds
on frantically with both arms and legs, and swears at the wind, the sleet, the darkness; the man who curses
the sea while others work.”
In the first example and first clause, the metrical feet are a mixture of trochaic and dactylic measures, but in
the second clause is straight iambic feet. In the second sentence we find elements of rhyme added to meter. In
the last part the last line is iambic pentameter, this exaggerated form of the metrical sentence is rarely used,
you may need it sometime though, perhaps to be funny.
Copy and Compose
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61 Master
“The worst part of war is not death and destruction but just soldiering; the worst part of soldiering is not
danger but nostalgia; and the worst part of a soldier's nostalgia is the lack of intimacy, the lack of privacy and
the deprivation of the rights of self-determination and ownership.”
This uses a rich number of stylistic devices and combinations. Here; alliteration, balanced two-part series,
negative-positive sequence, modified anadiplosis, keyword repetition, and a three-part series without
adaphora.