Note: Originally published in January 2023, before moving over to Substack.
It's 7:15 am MST, and the sky is still grey in Tempe. The orange tree in my backyard is starting to drop fruit, which are extra sweet this year. I recently learned that an orange tree's average healthy lifespan is 50 years, catching myself thinking the trees would go on indefinitely.
The sky is pink, reminding me that in the Odyssey there is an epithet repeated over twenty times: "But when early-born rosy-fingered Dawn appeared…" In college, I only took one classics course, but this note comes to mind whenever I'm awake early enough for sunrise.
Emily Wilson published her translation of the Odyssey in 2017, and she writes: "In an oral or semiliterate culture, repeated epithets give a listener an anchor in a quick-moving story. In a highly literate society such as our own, repetitions are likely to feel like moments to skip. They can be a mark of writerly laziness or unwillingness to acknowledge one's own interpretative position, and can send a reader to sleep." (Blog post for more.)
Don't repeat unless it's on purpose is a piece of writing advice I've held and shared over the years. When editing, my own repetition usually shows me an idea that I'm not quite satisfied with, yet. Most often, I collect the repetitions and keep my favorite version. Other times, I make the repetition more striking so that instead of lulling someone to sleep, it alerts them to danger, strangeness, grief, or another strong feeling.
Repetition on purpose, like reliving the day that a loved one died on each anniversary, can sear into memory—the opposite of similar days that all blend together.
Repetition on purpose can keep someone close as time carries them farther away.
A favorite link
On Becoming an American Writer by Alexander Chee (Paris Review 2018)