"Peristasis" Pronounce,Meaning And Examples

"Peristasis" Meaning

Peristasis is a rhetorical device that involves using a repeated phrase or word to emphasize or create a sense of rhythm or unity in a speech or piece of writing. It often involves repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences to create an effect of continuity or flow.

"Peristasis" Examples

Peristasis


Peristasis is a rhetorical device that describes the act of listing or enumerating similar things to create a vivid impression or emphasize a point. Here are 5 usage examples:

Example 1: Poetry

In the poem "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy, the poet uses peristasis to describe the winter landscape:
The ancient pulse of germinal things
Set Quietus, as if in a blind play,
Patterned darkness, giddy, creepy, bulging,
That challenged
The awakened earth.

Example 2: Literature

In J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", peristasis is used to describe the horrors of the land of Mordor:
'Fear not this land', said Gandalf, 'for all is not evil here, though it is evil- touched. The hills are dark, the forests are dark, the roots of the mountains are dark, dark are the rivers, and the treacherous wells are tangled in darkness.'

Example 3: Rhetoric

In a speech by Martin Luther King Jr., peristasis is used to describe the injustices faced by African Americans:
"In the heat of the summer, while the Golden Rule is being scratched and scrambled in every corner of our great nation, we present to you the fact, in an overwhelming array of facts, of the deadly relationship between the vast majority of Negroes who are bottled up in the year's infancy in poverty in the ghettos of our great cities and the vast reservoirs of the white brethren and sisterhood who have been taught, though they may not here be aware of it, or if they are they need not be concerned with it, that this white statuesque figure and the identical silver envelope with the amber pin on the porch step of the one who produced him, have been and still are representative of this country, the great United States of America."

Example 4: Music

In the song "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, peristasis is used to describe the fleeting nature of human relationships:
Remember when I moved in you, and the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
We were born without wings, but we can still fly
We could live without love, but we'd rather die
What else can we do?

Example 5: Philosophy

In the book "Beyond Good and Evil" by Friedrich Nietzsche, peristasis is used to describe the