Anaphora

In rhetoric, anaphora (Greek anaphorá, "carrying back") is "a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis." Its mirror is epistrophe, "repeating words at the clauses' ends." The article's functions: anaphora "adds rhythm to a word as well as making it more pleasurable to read and easier to remember" and appeals "to the emotions of the audience in order to persuade, inspire, motivate and encourage them." The canon runs from Psalm 29's "The voice of the Lord" to Lincoln's "We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground," King's "I have a dream" and Dickens's "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

For the prose writer it is a crescendo device: two or three repetitions lift a passage, a page of them drones. It repeats words where alliteration repeats sounds, and it belongs to the same ear as assonance.