Isocolon
A rhetorical scheme in which successive clauses have the same length and grammatical structure.
Isocolon (Greek, 'equal member') is the figure of parallel clauses of equal length and matching grammatical form. 'Veni, vidi, vici.' 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people.' 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' The visual and auditory symmetry gives the sentence a strong, chiselled quality.
Isocolon is one of the oldest ornaments of formal prose. Cicero, whose long periodic sentences are the model of Latin oratory, uses it constantly. So do the King James Bible and the great English speeches from the seventeenth century onward. The device is called bicolon when two clauses balance, tricolon when three do, tetracolon when four.
The tricolon — three parallel clauses — is the most common variant and probably the most rhythmically satisfying in English. It supplies a beginning, a middle, and a decisive end, and it lands cleanly on the ear. When a tricolon combines with auxesis (ascending force), the effect is one of the most reliable in rhetoric.
Isocolon degrades quickly into cliché if the parallel is merely surface. The clauses must not only match in length and grammar; they must also carry parallel meaning. Empty parallelism ('for the poor, for the rich, for you') is the vice of speechwriters short on ideas.
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Keep reading the glossary
A rhetorical structure of three parallel clauses, phrases, or words — the most persuasive number in English.
The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses.
A rhetorical climb — arranging words or ideas in ascending order of force or magnitude.
An ABBA word-order reversal — 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country'.