[RD] A Rhetorical Device that Justifies my Blathering

Polysyndeton is such a cool rhetorical device because it looks like my text messages.  Really, when I have an important story to tell my friends I write the whole thing out really quickly, and then I realize that I didn't use a single comma or period.  As it turns out, this can be described as a use of polysyndeton, which is the use of repeated conjunctions in a string of words or clauses.  Even though sentences employing polysyndeton look like a slew of words that need some desperate editing, many famous authors like Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner famously wrote in this sloppy fashion.  Of course, Hemingway's messy sentences look a heck of a lot better than my text messages, but it's the same concept of connecting many ideas that would typically be split into individual sentences or clauses divided by a comma or period.  

I was surprised to learn that many religious texts are breeding grounds for polysyndeton.  I found a few examples, but they were all in Latin, so I can't relate to those a whole lot.  Polysyndeton is used to achieve an artistic effect and is often found in poems, which makes the choppy format a lot more comprehensible.  In a sense, poetry splits these runny sentences up with line breaks and a shift in ideas.  

Sentences that use polysyndeton are often irritating and difficult to comprehend and practically beg for a sprinkling of commas and seem to never end.  See? They are slightly awful, but it's easy to see how it could come in handy and almost feel natural in a poetic setting.  I mean, I even made it rhyme! (I'm high-fiving myself)

Here's an example of Ernest Hemingway's use of polysyndeton: 

“I said, ‘Who killed him?’ and he said ‘I don’t know who killed him, but he’s dead all right,’ and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights or windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was right only she was full of water.” (Ernest Hemingway, After the Storm)

Also, a shoutout to the most legendary use of polysyndeton of all time: Molly Bloom's soliloquy in James Joyce's Ulysses, which used two periods in 4,391 words.  This was the book containing the longest published sentence in the English language until 2001.