Cantata BWV 72Alles nur nach Gottes Willen

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Translation

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Analysis

The sequence of nine "Lord, if you will it..." statements is an example of anaphora -a rhetorical device where words are repeated at the beginning of clauses for emphasis (if the repetition was at the end of the sentence or clause, it would be called epiphora instead!). Another example of anaphora is Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, where he repeats "I have a dream" eight times. In this case, the repeated statement comes directly from the gospel of the day, where the man suffering from leprosy says, "Lord, if you will it, you can make me clean".

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