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vehement repetition

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Repetition used with intense emotional force to heighten drama, urgency, or rhetorical power within a poetic passage.

Detailed Definition
Forceful or passionate repetition of words, phrases, or lines for emotional intensification and dramatic emphasis. Distinguished from ordinary repetition by emotional intensity and rhetorical force, vehement repetition should build or escalate rather than simply restating the same sentiment. Effective usage creates cumulative emotional impact, with each repetition adding force or urgency to the expression.
Example
Example in poetry:
Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume” uses vehement repetition for democratic insistence; Langston Hughes’ “I, Too”: “I, too, sing America. / I am the darker brother” repeats “I, too” with growing authority; Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”: “I have always been scared of you… / I have always been scared of you” uses vehement repetition for trauma; Amiri Baraka’s “Black Art”: “Poems are bullshit unless they are / teeth or trees or lemons piled on a step” repeats “we want” with militant urgency; Danez Smith’s “not an elegy for Mike Brown” repeats “do not let me die” with desperate vehemence; Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It” repeats “I’m stone” to convey emotional armor.
Additional Notes
Rhetorical technique using forceful repetition for emotional intensification. Should build rather than simply repeat the same expression. Effective vehement repetition escalates emotional impact.
Also Known As
Emphatic repetition Forceful iteration Passionate echo Intense anaphora Epizeuxis
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