Figures of Repetition in the Performance of the Italian Folktale

Abstract

This paper concerns the examination of stylistic features of the Italian folktale, presented through the use of figures of speech in a continuous correlation to the whole aesthetic of the genre as realized by the ‘law’ of repetition. The study, based on the analysis of hundred fifty-six transcribed oral Italian folktales is influenced by the ethnographic approach, which focuses on the story-teller and the folktale’s performance, the genre theory and the qualitative stylistic analysis. Emphasis is put on the figures that reveal the repetition of lexical and syntactic patterns of speech. Especially, usual and particular uses of the figure of epanadiplosis are presented, as the accumulative epanadiplosis, the gradable epanadiplosis, the emphatic epanadiplosis. Also, figures of main interest consist epanaphorá and its variances and the main sub-categories of epanastrophe as: (a) (synthetic)-generative, b) syntactic and c) cohesive epanastrophe. Last but not least, the figure of tautology is examined. The extended use of the above figures formates an artistic folktale grammar coupled with the analogous rhetorical dynamic.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n1p621