Falcão, Pedro Braga2026-01-272026-01-272021-04-01Falcão, P. B. (2021). O clímax enquanto ferramenta de análise literária: do entendimento retórico do termo à sua acepção contemporânea. In B. F. Pereira, & M. I. D. O. Várzeas (Eds.), Retórica e poética (pp. 11-41). Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.97898926207879789892620770a556813e-8be8-47c4-99db-926cf3c5afb3http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/56725The concept of “climax” has been often used in modern literary analysis to define the highest point of a literary piece, be it a speech, a poem, a tragedy, or a novel . Also in the field of musical studies the term is broadly used to describe the way a composer reaches a particularly expressive moment in his piece, and the technical tools he has at his disposal to achieve it . However, only few scholars mention the concept’s past as a rhetorical device in which the last word of a phrase or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next . But what is the relation between this rhetorical device and its etymological sense in Greek (klimax = “stair”)? How did that technical word gain the much broader sense of crescendo? Why did “climax” begin to be applied to name the last step of a given dynamical movement? In this paper we discuss the complex etymological evolution of the word, since antiquity till modern times, and attempt to theorize this often vaguely applied concept.porClimaxLiterary theoryLiteratureRhetoricbook part