USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

[SOURCES]
“we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow” is what rhetorical device?

(A) Allusion

(B) Simile

(C) Alliteration

(D) ** Anaphora

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -Repetition. Simple repetition is one of the most powerful rhetorical devices we can all apply. Firstly, with anaphora, meaning the repetition of words at the beginning of succeeding clauses: “…we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground.”

Concept note-2: -“The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln is remarkable through the use of rhetorical devices like allusion, antithesis, and tricolon.

Concept note-3: -An anaphora is a rhetorical device in which a word or expression is repeated at the beginning of a number of sentences, clauses, or phrases.

Concept note-4: -Throughout the Gettysburg address, Lincoln uses the literary device of anaphora-the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a series of statements. In this passage, Lincoln repeats “we can not” in order to drive home his point that Gettysburg has already been consecrated, by the dead rather than the living.

Concept note-5: -In “I Have a Dream”, Martin Luther King Jr. extensively uses repetitions, metaphors, and allusions. Other rhetorical devices that you should note are antithesis, direct address, and enumeration.