epiploce

English

Etymology

From Latin epiplocē (“(rhetoric) connection”), from Ancient Greek ἐπιπλοκή (epiplokḗ, “plaiting together”), from ἐπιπλέκω (epiplékō, “to interweave”), from ἐπι- (epi-, “upon”) (see epi-) + πλέκω (plékō, “to plait”).

Noun

Example
He not only spared his enemies, but continued them in employment; not only continued, but advanced them.

epiploce (uncountable)

1. (rhetoric) A figure of speech by which one striking circumstance is added, in due gradation, to another; escalation to a climax.
   • 1851, Charles James C. Davidson, Tara, the Suttee: An Indian Drama in Five Acts, page 125:

     In dress making Ram Rutton certainly excelled; but, from a curious idiosyncracy or obtuseness of intellect, he could not be made to comprehend "the unities," nor how an epiploce could be so graduated as to superinduce tears artificial; yet would he weep like an infant when mulcted for unauthorised absence from his professional labours.

   • 1875, Edward Faulkener, The Book of Psalms "of David the King and Prophet":, page 302:

     It is supposed that they acquire this name in consequence of the frequent occurrence of the epiploce; the subject of each psalm thus going on constantly from the beginning to the end.

   • 1912, Hubert McNeill Poteat, Repetition in Latin Poetry, page 35:

     In the twelve lines of 9.97 there are anaphora, epanasstrophe or anadiplosis ( in the form of epiploce), antistrophe, epanalepsis, and a fine epanadiplosis in the first and last lines )

2. Synonym of anaclasis
   • 1843, William O'Brien, The Ancient Rhythmical Art Recovered:

     This example turns out to be an instance of the misarrangement of the verses rather than of epiploce: and the same may be said of every case in which a syllable must be transferred from the end of one verse to the beginning of another. But there are many reasons to conclude that the Ancients did not divide words between verses as the Moderns do, and that it was this which gave rise to the epiploce of "adjectione per syllabas," which Mar. Victorinus learned from some ancient grammarian, who had more rhythmical knowledge than reached the times of the former.

   • 1886, John Frederick Rowbotham, A History of Music, page 250:

     All the feet might be treated by Epiploce.

   • 2011, R. Bruce Elder, The Films of Stan Brakhage in the American Tradition of Ezra Pound, Gertrude stein and Charles Olson, page 53:

     This interplay between two coexistent systems is an example of what Classical prosodists called “epiploce” (see glossary), a term that denotes the various possibilities of scansion. Epiploce generally, and more specifically the particular interplay we have been examining beetween a metrically determined and a phrasally determined scansion, creates and organizes variations in stress and intonation.