Epizeuxis is the emphatic repetition of a word or phrase without interruption. It’s pronounced /ɛpɪˈzjuːksɪs/ and comes from Greek, meaning fastening together.
It’s in the first line in William Blake’s Tyger:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;
Three is the most common number or repetitions, and we’ll see an instance thereof in the Quote.
More than three sounds weird in most places, unless it’s poetry. Here’s Edgar Allan Poe in The Bells with two instances of epizeuxis:
Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
That’s seven bells!
Actually, it is possible to get away with extreme epizeuxis in prose, and in a short story at that. Here’s Hemingway in Hills Like White Elephants.
‘I’d do anything for you.’
‘Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?’
If you ever encounter a sensible take on a more numerous epizeuxis, do let me know! (I note that Wikipedia cites Monty Python’s Flying Circus: I’ll have your Spam. I love it. I’m having Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam. But I reckon the baked beans spoils the deal, and it’s still only a seven-fold repetition.)
Here is today’s Quote, the first stanza of Walt Whitman‘s poem O Captain! My Captain!.
Quote:
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;But O heart! heart! heart!O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.
What makes the Quote quiver?
Funky formatting with heart repeated at the heart of the stanza. Rhymed storytelling.
A Quiver Of Quotes 