We explain what anaphora is, what it is for and examples of this rhetorical figure. Also, what is the cataphor and what is it used for.
What is anaphora?
Anaphora is called a Figure of speech or literary figure, which is used to grant the text writing a greater beauty or greater expressive power, and that consists of the repetition of a word or several, at the beginning of a sentence or a verse, in the case of poetry, or of a word or a syntactic group, in that of prose.
This literary figure should not be confused with the grammatical or linguistic term that bears the same name (anaphora), and that it consists of referring a term by means of a pronoun or a deictic before the noun appear in the next sentence.
Anaphora is often used in poetic texts, especially in rhymes, or in pieces of oratory, since repetition gives them a more powerful, more spectacular effect to what is read. This power has to do with the musicality and rhythm of the language.
This resource is classified within the rhetorical figures of repetition, that is, those that bet on the reuse of some element of the written text. Other examples of this are polysyndeton, parallelism, pun, chiasmus, paronomasia or diaphora, to name just a few from the same category.
Examples of anaphora
Some diverse examples of anaphora are the following:
- ¡Run, run, that I reach you!
- Together we will achieve the objective. Together we will succeed.Together, never separated.
- Green the fig leaf on his forehead /green the announcement of the Northern Lights
- “Hereit was Troy,here my misfortune "
- Goes up down that road,goes up and go up again, until you conquer the top.
- I walked so many ways to be among you ...So many and so long that they wouldn't believe me.
- This was a manso, so envious, that ...
- Green, that I love yougreen.
- We had accomplished.We had finally defeated.
- Then I saw her: thefrom the green eyes,of tight pants,ofunmatched face.
What is the cataphor?
Thecataphor It is a linguistic figure that consists of the anticipated reference of an idea or a subject that will be made explicit later in the sentence, in other words, the resource that consists of using deictics or pronouns to refer to something that will later be made clear. For example, in the sentence:
"From the first timethe I saw, I knew that Laura would be my wife ”.
The second pronoun la, highlighted, anticipates the arrival of Laura, the subject of which it is spoken, therefore the full meaning of “la” can only be completed at the end of the prayer, and not from the outset when reading said pronoun. This is known as a cataphor.
Other possible examples of cataphor:
- Barelyit We saw him arrive, we confirmed that Miguel was in love.
- In a pocketit he had a Smith & Wesson revolver that had been his father's.
- A Alone she raised her hand: it was the professor's wife.