Repetition and Refrain in literature?

Question

What are the differences between "Repetition and Refrain in literature? and I've looked up some of the examples and sometimes they both hard to recognize which one is Repetition and Refrain. How do i distinguish it?

Answer 1

Refrain is a word, a line, or a group of lines that regularly repeat in different stanzas. For example, in Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee"

“It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know …

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love —

I and my Annabel Lee..."

"In a kingdom by the sea" is a refrain repeated in this poem.

Refrain is a type of repetition that occurs in poetry. An example of repetition that isn't a refrain is in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech". He repeats "I have a dream" over and over to emphasize that phrase.