Hyperbaton vs. Anastrophe: What’s the Difference?

Even if you’re not a Star Wars fan, you probably know how Yoda, one of its most iconic characters, speaks. It’s best remembered by one of his most famous lines: “The greatest teacher, failure is.”

This inversion of words is called hyperbaton or anastrophe. But while the two are often regarded as the same, there are those who view them as only closely similar.

What Is Hyperbaton?

A hyperbaton is a figure of speech that disrupts a customary word order to create a distinctive effect. Writers use it to play with words and phrases, adding or rearranging them into different patterns while keeping the original meaning of the sentence (or something close to it).

Hyperbaton is more of a rhetorical term. In English, people sometimes use the grammatical term inversion to describe the reversal of the normal word order (includes anastrophe).

It comes from the Greek word hyperbatos, meaning “transposed” or “inverted.” Its plural form is hyperbatons or hyperbatons.

Here are a few examples of Hyperbaton:

• In the playground the kids happily went to play. (The kids happily went to play in the playground.)
• Restless, the man from one side to the other, paced the room. (The restless man paced the room from one side to the other.)
• He will not, however much torture he endures, submit to the terrorist. (He will not submit to the terrorist, however much torture he endures.)
• Mashed and buttered, she likes her potatoes best. (She likes her potatoes best if they’re mashed and buttered.)
• At the bottom of the stairs did they find him, breathing his last, ragged breath. (They found him at the bottom of the stairs, breathing his last, ragged breath.)

What Is Anastrophe?

Anastrophe is a more specific type of hyperbaton. Rather than transposing multiple words and phrases, it only changes the position of a single word. So while all anastrophes are hyperbatons, not all hyperbatons are anastrophes.

It comes from the Greek word anastrephein, meaning “turn upside-down.” Its plural form is anastrophes.

Here are a few examples of Anastrophe:

• Patience I lack. (I lack patience.)
• Tall he was not. (He was not tall.)
• Excited the children were when dad finally came home. (The children were excited when dad finally came home.)
• She stared into the dog’s eyes deep and menacing. (She stared into the dog’s deep and menacing eyes.)
• In the night sky, stars shimmered. (Stars shimmered in the night sky.)

Hyperbaton vs. Anastrophe

As far as research goes, the confusion between the two may be due to the changing meaning of words. In classical languages, hyperbaton is when a phrase is disrupted by the insertion of words in between. It was often used to emphasize the first word of a sentence.

In English, the term is defined differently as a reversion or transposition of the normal order of words. Because anastrophes are extremely similar, people have begun to interchange the two.

Examples in Literature

Many writers and poets employ hyperbatons and anastrophes in their works. Here are a few famous examples:

1. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

  Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.

Many of Poe’s works heavily feature hyperbatons. In this particular case, he uses it to make the narrator’s crime more dramatic by emphasizing the lack of motivation.

2. 1984 by George Orwell

 “Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

Orwell cleverly inverts the first and second halves of the last sentence so he can end the sentence with the more foreboding line “there are no heroes.”

3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

"Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, Mr. Micawber has not."

While Dickens could have easily written the above as “Mr. Micawber has talent, but he does not have capital,” it doesn’t give the same emphasis to the character’s traits.

4. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Tolkien’s inversion brings the reader’s attention to the hole, creating a strong image while they wonder about what a hobbit is and why do they live in the ground.

5. The Butterfly’s Day by Emily Dickinson

"From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged—a summer afternoon—
Repairing everywhere."

Dickinson liked to shift her words around to create interesting rhythms and sounds. Here, this amplifies the imagery of the poem.

Words Have Power

There are many reasons why people use hyperbatons and anastrophes, the most common being emphasis. In changing their order, writers can draw attention to certain words that they want the readers to notice. This gives them an opportunity to emphasize elements that are important to their works.

In many cases, this emphasis is created to reinforce a concept, such as an image, metaphor, or character trait. Take Yoda as an example. He easily stands out not only because of his role in Star Wars, but also because of the way he speaks.

His speech patterns instantly lend him mystique and make his advice sound more profound. This enhances his “old and wise mentor” image nicely.

And while stylistic choice is a given in every work of literature, poetry exhibits this the strongest. Poets often invert a line to adapt it to a certain rhythm—or break a rhythm to create emphasis. In other cases, it’s so they can retain the rhyme scheme.

Sometimes, these inversions are used to make a writer’s sentence sound more polished. The odd structure of the sentence makes it different, abstract, and more pleasing to read. It also has the effect of making a sentence more mysterious and dramatic to the reader. There is then an added satisfaction in discovering its meaning.

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If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:

• Enjambment: How to Bring Fluidity to Poetry
• What Are Anagrams? Definition and Examples
• Mixed Constructions: What They Are and How to Avoid Them
• Hypercorrection: Definition and Examples