Climax (figure of speech)

The climax is a rhetorical device ( ancient Greek κλίμαξ klimax, stairs ' or ' head ') and consists of a step-like increase of expressions, that is, of a transition from the less important- important- for, from the less to the Distinctive Distinctive, making the overall presentation significantly is amplified (usually tripartite increase ).

Examples:

• "He was my friend, my angel, my God " ( The Robbers - Friedrich von Schiller )
• " He cries, he is defeated, he is ours! " ( The Maid of Orléans - Friedrich von Schiller)
• " This is bad; the world is bad, very bad "( Woyzeck - Georg Büchner )!
• "Today back ' I need tomorrow ' I, the day after hol ' I the queen's child " ( Rumpelstiltskin - Grimm Brothers )
• " Veni, vidi, vici. " - ( I came, saw and conquered. ) Letter to Caesar Gaius Matius
• " Tak bylo tak jest tak i budet wsegda! " - ( This was so, that is and will always be so. ) Last verse of the chorus of the Russian National Anthem

In contrast, the anti-climax, in which a term is gradually weakened:

• " To the Pope circulate the Cardinals. And the Cardinals circulate the bishops. And the bishops circulate the secretaries " ( Life of Galileo - Bertolt Brecht).
• " Ancestress, grandmother, mother and child " ( The storm - Gustav Schwab )

A special, mostly humorous form of anti-climax is the bathos.

Sometimes both stylistic devices are grouped under the term gradation, which denotes both the increasing and the weakening gradation of expressions.

Background information

• Sample video for the application of climax and anticlimax
• More Videos to rhetorical terms