Research and examples of alliteration, anaphora, ethos and pathos

In rhetoric, an anaphora, which means "carrying back" in Greek, is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis. [Wikipedia] Classic examples of anaphora can be found in poetry, such as Rudyard Kiplings’ poem If – its lines all start with ‘If you can’ – and Walt Whitman’s poem O Captain! My Captain!

Ethos is a Greek word and denotes the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, a nation or an ideology. It originally means “accustomed place” or “custom, habit”. In rhetoric, ethos is one of the three artistic proofs or modes of persuasion (other principles being logos and pathos) discussed by Aristotle. Speakers must establish ethos from the start. This can involve "moral competence" only; Aristotle however broadens the concept to include expertise and knowledge. Ethos is limited, in his view, by what the speaker says. Others however contend that a speaker's ethos extends to and is shaped by the overall moral character and history of the speaker—that is, what people think of his or her character before the speech is even begun. [Wikipedia] A classic speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., called Letter from Birmingham Jail, is an example of ethos:

           My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely."...Since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable in terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in."...I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here.  I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.  Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.  Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

           In Atticus’s speech in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus uses ethos when he said “In the name of God, believe in Tom Robinson…… In the name of God, do your duty.”

Pathos – which means “suffering” or “experience” in Greek – represents an appeal to the audience's emotions. Pathos is a communication technique used most often in rhetoric, and in literature, film and other narrative art. Pathos is often associated with emotions, but it is more complex than simply emotions. A better equivalent might be appeal to the audience's sympathies and imagination. An appeal to pathos causes an audience not just to respond emotionally but to identify with the writer's point of view - to feel what the writer feels. [Wikipedia] In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus uses pathos in his speech:

But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal-there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockfeller, the stupid mand the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court.

Also, Martin Luther King Jr.’s I have a Dream Speech also include great pathos and Anaphora, as you can see in:

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words and phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to the poem's meter, are stressed. The classic tongue-twisters, such as ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers’, are great examples of alliteration. The following speech which appeared in V for Vendetta is another recent example of alliteration.

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."