Entertainment / Literature / Diacope: (from Greek, 'cleft' or 'gash', also called Epizeuxis or repetition) Uninterrupted repetition, or repetition with only one or two words between each repeated phrase. Typically, the purpose of diacope is to show strong emotion. Peacham writes, 'My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed.' A character in a gothic novel might cry out, 'Oh, horror, horror, horror!' Probably the most dramatic use of diacope is found in Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Bells,' in which Poe writes: To the swinging and the ringing, Of the bells, bells, bells-- Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells--. Diacope is an example of a rhetorical scheme. Do note that some rhetoricians such as Arthur Quinn and Richard Lanham suggest that diacope can, in another secondary meaning, be used interchangeably with tmesis.
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