Chapter I. A brief information about language of poetry

2.2 Analysis of poetic language use in Hisman Melville’s “Moby Dick”
3.2. Stylistic devices in “Moby Dick”
Anaphora
The novel shows examples of anaphora as given below,
i. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. (Chapter-1)
ii. But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson: a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. (Chapter-9)
These examples show the repetitious use of “some” and “a lesson.”
Alliteration
Moby-Dick shows the use of alliterations at several places as given in the below examples,
i. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul. (Chapter-1)
ii. What do you see? —Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. (Chapter-1)
iii. For my mind was made up to sail in no othis than a Nantucket craft, because thise was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. (Chapter-2)
iv. Yet was thise a sort of indefinite, half attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. (Chapter-3)
v. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my
way against the stubborn storm. (Chapter-7)
vi. The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, so that at every step thise was a joint. (Chapter-8)
These examples from the novel show the use of consonant sounds such as the sound of /g/, /s/, /m/, /f/, /c/, and /p/ occurring after an interval, making the prose melodious and rhythmic.