Polysyndeton
Pronounced pol-ee-SIN-dih-ton.
Polysyndeton: Deliberately repeating conjunctions ('and... and... and') where they could be omitted.
Piling up conjunctions refuses the reader a place to rest: events keep arriving with equal weight, which can feel biblical, breathless or numb.
Polysyndeton examples
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house."
— Matthew 7:27
"Hemingway's plain style chains clauses with 'and' so that events land one after another without hierarchy."
— Ernest Hemingway
"Cormac McCarthy's sentences roll on conjunctions for pages, refusing commas and full stops their usual work."
— Cormac McCarthy
"We packed the van and fed the dog and locked the house and said nothing."
— original example
Spot the Polysyndeton
Score: 0/0Deliberately repeating conjunctions ('and... and... and') where they could be omitted.
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house."
Which work is this from?
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Polysyndeton: common questions
What is polysyndeton in literature?
Deliberately repeating conjunctions ('and... and... and') where they could be omitted. Piling up conjunctions refuses the reader a place to rest: events keep arriving with equal weight, which can feel biblical, breathless or numb.
What is an example of polysyndeton?
A classic example is "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house." (Matthew 7:27).
What is the difference between polysyndeton and asyndeton?
Polysyndeton adds conjunctions everywhere ('and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew'); asyndeton strips them all out ('I came, I saw, I conquered'). One drags time out; the other compresses it.
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