Editing Anastrophe

{{Short description|Figure of speech with changed word order}}
'''Anastrophe''' (from the {{langx|el|ἀναστροφή}}, ''anastrophē'', "a turning back or about") is a [[figure of speech]] in which the normal [[word order]] of the [[subject (grammar)|subject]], the [[verb]], and the [[object (grammar)|object]] is changed.

Anastrophe is a [[hyponym]] of the [[antimetabole]], where anastrophe only transposes one word in a sentence. For example, [[subject–verb–object]] ("I like potatoes") might be changed to [[object–subject–verb]] ("potatoes I like").<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Cioffi | year = 2009 | title = The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers | publisher = Princeton University Press | page = 137 | isbn= 978-1400826568}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130614204246/http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/A/anastrophe.htm - silva rhetoricae]</ref>

== Examples ==
Because English has a settled natural word order, anastrophe emphasizes the displaced word or phrase. For example, the name of the [[City Beautiful]] urbanist movement emphasises "beautiful". Similarly, in "This is the forest primeval", from [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]]'s ''[[Evangeline]]'', the emphasis is on "primeval".

If the emphasis that comes from anastrophe is not an issue, the [[synonym]] ''inversion'' is perfectly suitable.

Anastrophe is common in [[Ancient Greek]] and [[Latin]] poetry, such as in the first line of the ''[[Aeneid]]'':

:''Arma virumque cano, <u>Troiæ</u> qui primus ab <u>oris</u>''
::("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy")

In the example, the [[genitive case]] noun ''Troiæ'' ("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 of [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]'s ''[[The 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!"
::Eftsoons <u>his hand dropt he.</u>

The word order of "his hand dropt he" is not the customary word order in English, even in the [[archaism|archaic]] English 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 usually{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}} considered a flaw, such as the clumsy versification of Sternhold and Hopkins's [[metrical psalter]]:

:The earth is all the Lord's, with all
::her store and furniture;
:Yea, <u>his is all the work</u>, and all
::that <u>therein doth endure</u>:

:For he hath fastly founded it
::<u>above the seas to stand</u>,
:And <u>placed below the liquid floods</u>,
::to flow beneath the land.

However, some poets have a style that depends on heavy use of anastrophe.  [[Gerard Manley Hopkins]] is particularly identified with the device, which renders his poetry susceptible to [[parody]]:

:Hope holds <u>to Christ the mind's own mirror out</u>	
: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:
:"<u>Never have I found</u> the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance" ([[W. Eugene Smith]]).
In [[Robert 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:<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jay.|first=Pack, Robert, 1929- Parini|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/45733740|title=Touchstones : American poets on a favorite poem|date=1996|publisher=University Press of New England|isbn=978-1-61168-104-8|oclc=45733740}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-09-13|title=Robert Frost: "Mending Wall" by Austin Allen|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/150774/robert-frost-mending-wall|access-date=2021-09-13|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en}}</ref>
:"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..."

A popular cultural example of anastrophe would be [[Yoda]] from the ''Star Wars'' series.
“Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.”

== See also ==

* [[Hyperbaton]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{cite book | last = Smyth | first = Herbert Weir | year = 1920 | title = Greek Grammar | publisher = Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge MA | isbn = 0-674-36250-0 | pages = 673&ndash;674}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Anastrophe}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130614204246/http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/A/anastrophe.htm Figures of rhetoric:] Anastrophe
*https://modernamericanpoetry.org/criticism/lawrence-raab-mending-wall {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913122225/https://modernamericanpoetry.org/criticism/lawrence-raab-mending-wall |date=2021-09-13 }}

[[Category:Figures of speech]]
[[Category:Poetic devices]]
[[Category:Word order]]

[[pl:Przestawnia]]