Anastrophe

Anastrophe(from theGreek:ἀναστροφή,anastrophē,"a turning back or about" ) is afigure of speechin which the normalword orderof thesubject,theverb,and theobjectis changed.

Anastrophe is ahyponymof theantimetabole,where anastrophe only transposes one word in a sentence. For example,subject–verb–object( "I like potatoes" ) might be changed toobject–subject–verb( "potatoes I like" ).

Examples

Because English has a settled natural word order, anastrophe emphasizes the displaced word or phrase. For example, the name of theCity Beautifulurbanist movement emphasises "beautiful". Similarly, in "This is the forest primeval", fromHenry Wadsworth Longfellow'sEvangeline,the emphasis is on "primeval".

If the emphasis that comes from anastrophe is not an issue, thesynonyminversionis perfectly suitable.

Anastrophe is common inAncient GreekandLatinpoetry, such as in the first line of theAeneid:

Arma virumque cano,Troiæqui primus aboris

( "I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy" )

In the example, thegenitive casenounTroiæ( "of Troy" ) has been separated from the noun that it governs (oris,"shores" ) in a way that would be rather unusual in Latin prose. In fact, the liberty of Latin word order allows "of Troy" to be taken to modify "arms" or "the man" but is not customarily interpreted so.

Anastrophe also occurs in English poetry, as in the third verse ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge'sThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

He holds him with his skinny hand,

"There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"

Eftsoonshis hand dropt he.

The word order of "his hand dropt he" is not the customary word order in English, even in thearchaicEnglish that Coleridge seeks to imitate. Also, excessive use of the device if the emphasis is unnecessary or even unintended, especially for the sake of rhyme or metre, is usuallyconsidered a flaw, such as the clumsy versification of Sternhold and Hopkins'smetrical psalter:

The earth is all the Lord's, with all

her store and furniture;

Yea,his is all the work,and all

thattherein doth endure:

For he hath fastly founded it

above the seas to stand,

Andplaced below the liquid floods,

to flow beneath the land.

However, some poets have a style that depends on heavy use of anastrophe.Gerard Manley Hopkinsis particularly identified with the device, which renders his poetry susceptible toparody:

Hope holdsto Christ the mind's own mirror out

To take His lovely likeness more and more.

When anastrophe draws an adverb to the head of a thought, such as for emphasis, the verb is drawn along. That causes a verb-subject inversion:

"Never have I foundthe limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance "(W. Eugene Smith).

InRobert Frost's "Mending Wall,"the poem's opening clause begins with an object noun, and yet this inversion does not occur, effectively creating a tension that is worked against through the rest of the poem:

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..."

A popular cultural example of anastrophe would beYodafrom theStar Warsseries. “Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.”

See also

• Hyperbaton

Sources

• Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920).Greek Grammar.Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 673–674.ISBN0-674-36250-0.

External links

• Figures of rhetoric:Anastrophe
• https://modernamericanpoetry.org/criticism/lawrence-raab-mending-wallArchived2021-09-13 at theWayback Machine