Climax (figure of speech)

In rhetoric, a climax (from the Greek κλῖμαξ klimax, meaning "staircase" and "ladder") is a figure of speech in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance. It is sometimes used with anadiplosis, which uses the repetition of a word or phrase in successive clauses.

Examples:

• "There are three things that will endure: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13
• "I think we've reached a point of great decision, not just for our nation, not only for all humanity, but for life upon the earth." George Wald A Generation in Search of a Future, March 4, 1969.
• "...Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour." William Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim, XIII
• "...the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream
• Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime

Similarly an anti-climax is an abrupt declension (either deliberate or unintended) on the part of a speaker or writer from the dignity of idea which he appeared to be aiming at; as in the following well-known distich:

"The great Dalhousie, he, the god of war,

Lieutenant-colonel to the earl of Mar."

An anticlimax can be intentionally employed only for a jocular or satiric purpose. It frequently partakes of the nature of antithesis, as–

"Die and endow a college or a cat."

It is often difficult to distinguish between "anticlimax" and "bathos"; but the former is more decidedly a relative term. A whole speech may never rise above the level of bathos; but a climax of greater or less elevation is the necessary antecedent of an anticlimax.

See also

• Figure of speech

References

• Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). Greek Grammar. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. p. 677. ISBN 0-674-36250-0.