In rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

, a climax (from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 κλῖμαξ klimax, meaning "staircase" and "ladder") is a figure of speech

Figure of speech

A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile,...

 in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in order of increasing importance. It is sometimes used with anadiplosis

Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.-Examples:...

, which uses the repetition of a word or phrase in successive clauses.

Examples:

• "There are three things that will endure: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13
• "I think we've reached a point of great decision, not just for our nation, not only for all humanity, but for life upon the earth." George Wald
  George Wald
  George Wald was an American scientist who is best known for his work with pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit.- Research :...
  
   A Generation in Search of a Future, March 4, 1969.
• "...Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour." William Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
  
  , The Passionate Pilgrim, XIII
• "...the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream
• Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime

Similarly an anti-climax is an abrupt declension (either deliberate or unintended) on the part of a speaker or writer from the dignity of idea which he appeared to be aiming at; as in the following well-known distich:

"The great Dalhousie, he, the god of war,

Lieutenant-colonel to the earl of Mar."

An anticlimax can be intentionally employed only for a jocular or satiric purpose. It frequently partakes of the nature of antithesis, as–

"Die and endow a college or a cat."

It is often difficult to distinguish between "anticlimax" and "bathos

Bathos

Bathos is an abrupt transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect. While often unintended, bathos may be used deliberately to produce a humorous effect. If bathos is overt, it may be described as Burlesque or mock-heroic...

"; but the former is more decidedly a relative term. A whole speech may never rise above the level of bathos; but a climax of greater or less elevation is the necessary antecedent of an anticlimax.