Polysyndeton is the use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton. The rhetorical effect of polysyndeton, however, often shares with that of asyndeton a feeling of multiplicity, energetic enumeration, and building up.
- They read and studied and wrote and drilled. I laughed and played and talked and flunked.
Use polysyndeton to show an attempt to encompass something complex:
- The water, like a witch's oils, / Burnt green, and blue, and white. --S. T. Coleridge
- [He] pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. --John Milton
The multiple conjunctions of the polysyndetic structure call attention to themselves and therefore add the effect of persistence or intensity or emphasis to the other effect of multiplicity. The repeated use of "nor" or "or" emphasizes alternatives; repeated use of "but" or "yet" stresses qualifications. Consider the effectiveness of these:
- And to set forth the right standard, and to train according to it, and to help forward all students towards it according to their various capacities, this I conceive to be the business of a University. --John Henry Newman
- We have not power, nor influence, nor money, nor authority; but a willingness to persevere, and the hope that we shall conquer soon.
In a skilled hand, a shift from polysyndeton to asyndeton can be very impressive:
- Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. --Isaiah 24:1-2 (KJV)
