Elements of Eloquence Single Line Challenge, Chapters 7, 8, and 9: Aposeopesis, Hyperbaton, and Anadiplosis
Now that we’ve warmed up a bit, let’s get this thing moving.
We’re only supposed to be writing a single line, after all, for each chapter. Two or three at most. And there are 39 chapters in our book, Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth!
Aposeopesis is easy. It’s just letting a sentence trail off unfinished – with an implied, unspoken finish, that is – said finish indicated by three periods at the end.
“And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever …”
“If only…”
Hyperbaton is something we’ve talked about quite a bit on this blog. It’s using a syntax (word order) that is something other than Subject-Verb-Object.
“Stone walls do not a prison make”
“At me the dragon slowly surged”
And Anadiplosis is a longer figure, also quite familiar to those who frequent this blog, in which words are chain-linked together at the beginnings and ends of a series of phrases, thusly:
We glory in tribulations also,
knowing that tribulation worketh patience,
and patience, experience,
and experience, hope,
and hope maketh man not ashamed.
Can you get them all into one line? Probably not. But you can get them all into one comment, I’m sure!
Slow Literature 
Without justice, no peace can we enjoy. Where there is justice, peace also is there; and where peace dwells, there dwells prosperity; for mankind, when no trouble is imposed upon him, by ambition himself troubles. But let no one receive what he deserves, and men soon learn that no hope of success is possible. And where there is no hope of success…
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I don’t feel this is quite masterful. But it was a good challenge.
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