“How Long? Not Long!”
Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive clauses that have different endings.
It is an element of classic rhetorical Idiomatic Lamentation as a structure of accusation and indictment in pursuit of remedial accountability.
“The Book of Lamentations is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC…”
—-Wikipedia
The Book of Lamentations expresses primal outrage and instructs how lacking in innocence (neutrality or objectivity) the representation of extreme events must be…
There’s no accountability without accusation…
The general insufficiency of language in the face of the horrors of the age arises out of the nature and magnitude of events that seem to defeat attempts at description and expression…
The Book of Lamentations
Zola’s “J’Accuse”
The Declaration of Independence
MLK’s “I Have a Dream”
Are literary examples of language that overcomes and transcends the limitations and deficiencies of common or ordinary written or spoken language.
Martin Luther King’s capacity to capture, in the lamentations of his speeches and writings, the evilness of evil and the painfulness of pain is unsurpassed to this day.
The direct line from the ancient Book of Lamentations to a speech of MLK is unmistakable:
Psalm 6
Key verse: Psalm 6:3, “My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?”
There has been no greater spokesperson for equality and justice in the history of this nation.
In honoring his legacy, it should be noted that his method and approach to making an accusatory case for equality and justice, ensconced in the effectiveness of rhetorical lamentation, is sorely missed as we search for ways to express the ‘primal outrage’ we feel at the horror of the recent attack on our nation’s democratic impulses and institutions and for which we, as ordinary citizens, can find no words.
01/18/2021 @ 10:45 am
Yes, MLK understood rhetorical rhythm, possibly better than anyone.
I watched the Capitol video. I was struck by the prayer offered on the Senate floor in terms of what it said about the mythology of these guys, their alternate reality. There is no substantial American population of communists, I’m not sure what a globalist even is but if it means people who put international interests before American interests that population has to be tiny and probably doesn’t include a single Congressman or Senator. The Paris Accords are very much in American interests. Then there are the traitors, which is what the people praying are by subverting an American election which the President has told them was already subverted. Of course, if they follow any mainstream news at all – which they may not, a circumstance which is the core of the entire problem – they would know that all the evidence coming out points to the election being pretty damned clean, plus they’d know that we have the President’s voice on recording asking the head Georgia election official to subvert the election.
This is the one aspect of the most important problem we have. When people believe a different set of facts, their beliefs will bring them to different conclusions even if some of their core values are more similar to ours than we think. The other aspect is a lack of education about what the Constitution really is. It is not a tribal document and they are treating it as one.