Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines, clauses, or sentences. Poets use it to build rhythm, create emphasis, and make an idea feel insistent or memorable. The repeated opening should be noticeable and deliberate, not just accidental repetition elsewhere in the passage.
Example
We waited for dawn to break the hill.
We waited for the wind to turn.
We waited for the first thin light
to silver the sleeping road.
Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition! — (William Shakespeare,
King John, II, i)
We shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,
we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills.
We shall never surrender. — (Winston Churchill)
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer! (
One people,
one empire,
one leader!) — (Adolf Hitler)
What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp? — (William Blake, from
The Tyger)
I Have A Dream, that one day...
I Have a Dream...I
Have a Dream — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.