A Critique of Rhetoricians’ Views on Epanalepsis

Epanalepsis is a literary device whose use in literary texts has a long history. Repetition of words in poetry has different forms, epanalepsis being one of them. This research, with a new approach, tries to trace the historical course of ancient Persian rhetoricians’ views on epanalepsis. It also describes other forms of literary repetition mentioned in their books. From rhetoricians’ point of view, there are six main positions in the structure of each verse of the poem. Epanalepsis is an example of the repetition of a word based on these positions. In Persian poetry, however, repetition has other patterns too. In the present article, these models are examined from a critical perspective in order to take a closer look at the rhetoricians’ critique of poetry and to pay more attention to this form of repetition in Persian poetry.