We’re taught in high school English to vary sentence length and structure so our writing doesn’t become tedious:
I would like to graduate because I would like to go to college. I would like to get a good job someday because I would like to make lots of money. The reason I would like to make money is because I would like to start a camp for kids with emotional issues. I would like to help them with their emotional issues by having a camp. At the camp we would help kids learn to deal with their emotional issues. That is why I would like to graduate.
Even if we vary the structure, using the same words over and over can seriously kill the mood:
K-Pop is pretty awesome. Most of the songs are in two languages, which is awesome. The bands wear awesome clothes and do cool dance moves, which look awesome. But it’s deep, too. The song, “I’m Deep, Too” is about a guy who’s awesome falling for an awesome girl who won’t date him because she’s got a weird disease, but he loves her anyway which is awesome and she gets an awesome doctor who finds a cure anyway. It’s an awesome story.
And yet, accomplished writers sometimes utilize repetition to great effect. As with so many other literary devices, I like to introduce the idea with examples from popular music – starting with this excerpt from Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed – the poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That’s how it goes… everybody knows.Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows that the captain lied.
Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog just died.
Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stemmed rose…
Everybody knows.
In this case, the repetition isn’t lazy, but strategic. It drives home the idea that corruption and despair are so universal as to be practically mundane – making it that much more tragic.
From “I Can’t Get Over It” by the 77’s:
You say you’re sorry – I can’t get over it.
I said I forgive you – I can’t get over it.
You say you’ll learn from this mistake – I can’t get over it.
I should be giving you a break, but I can’t –We put it behind us now – I can’t get over it.
Nothing left to remind us now – I can’t get over it…
I’ve done so much worse many times myself – I can’t get over it.
I’ve got no right to indict somebody else – I can’t get over it.You hurt us both; I’m hurtin’ us more not getting over it.
Can I say I ever really loved you if I don’t get over it?
The persistent refrain emphasizes how trapped the singer is in one specific emotion and moment. It’s a nagging wall he continues hitting despite knowing intellectually that it’s not healthy or even fair.
Granted, most popular music contains some repetition. If nothing else, most tunes have some version of a chorus or recurring segments. But that’s not what’s happening in these examples (or at least, that’s not ALL that’s happening). The repetition carries thematic weight and shapes the tone. It’s also risky. If the artists don’t pull it off, such redundancies aren’t just boring – they’re irritating.
Repetition isn’t always this straightforward. In “Therapy,” Jonathan Larson uses it to hint at something fairly significant about his deteriorating relationship with girlfriend Susan.
{Him:} I feel bad, that you feel bad about me feeling bad about you feeling bad
About what I said about what you said about me not being able to share a feeling…{Her:} If I thought that what you thought was that I hadn’t thought about sharing my thoughts
Then my reaction to your reaction to my reaction would have been more revealing{Him:} I was afraid that you’d be afraid if I told you that I was afraid of intimacy
If you don’t have a problem with my problem, maybe the problem’s simply codependency?{Her:} Yes, I know that now you know that I didn’t know that you didn’t know
That when I said “no” I meant “yes, I know” and that now I know that you knew that I knew you adored me…
This one’s a bit more complicated. If we were in class, I’d probably open the floor to suggestions about why Larson takes this approach. Personally, I suspect it’s partly just aesthetic – he likes the way it sounds. At the same time, the repeated words and phrases which ricochet back and forth between the two parties suggest that conversations about the relationship have become so rote and galvanized that while they may go through the motions, nothing “real” is being solved anymore. If anything, it almost seems to mock the entire process.
Here’s an even subtler use of repetition with a bit heavier goal in mind. It’s not a pop song, but it was composed with a “listening” audience in mind.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
This is Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” from 1863. It’s a speech so powerful and central to the meaning of what it (supposedly) means to be an American that we used to supernaturalize it by claiming Lincoln wrote it on the back of an envelope on the train ride to Gettysburg, as if divine inspiration alone could account for its compact beauty. That is, of course, utter nonsense. He may have worked on it a bit on the train, making last minute notes to himself or minor edits, but Lincoln didn’t speak extemporaneously (ever, that we know of) and he certainly wouldn’t have been so cavalier about such an important occasion.
No, this is the Lincoln who studied by the fireplace all night and who labored over every word of every speech he ever gave. He’d composed this speech days (if not weeks) before, and several of his most trusted advisors had already read it and offered suggestions. He knew that while it would likely be reported in the papers, its initial effectiveness would primarily depend on how it sounded.
The central message of the address is that all Americans (not just soldiers or political leaders) must dedicate themselves to the ideals expressed in their founding documents. In a 271 word speech, he uses some version of the word “dedicate” six times. If we add variations like “devotion” and “consecrate,” that number doubles. He also uses “dead” or “died” a half-dozen times, which certainly aren’t the same as “dedicated” but are related thematically and act as homonyms of a sort.
That’s a whole lotta dedication, devotion, and dying for the cause.
Lincoln also echoes entire phrases to emphasize his message…
“a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to {a} proposition” + “that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated…”
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…” + “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…”
“from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…”
Repetition helps drive home central ideas. Creative repetition, though, also shapes tone and mood. (Notice how I keep saying this in different ways throughout this post? Seemed appropriate, somehow.) It’s certainly one of the easiest literary devices to recognize…
From Robert Frost:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Or Dr. Seuss:
Would you like them in a house? Would you like them with a mouse?
I do not like them in a house. I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
Classical lyricist Eminem:
’Cause I’m Slim Shady – yes, I’m the real Shady – all you other Slim Shadys are just imitating
So won’t the real Slim Shady please stand up? Please stand up? Please stand up?
’Cause I’m Slim Shady – yes, I’m the real Shady – all you other Slim Shadys are just imitating
So won’t the real Slim Shady please stand up? Please stand up? Please stand up?
Or literary legend Charles Dickens:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us
The only real challenge is for students to come up with something plausible to say when asked why the author chose to use it. In other words, what effect does it have?
If the answer is anything other than “it’s just kind of annoying,” then it probably worked.