Wulfstan attained a high degree of competence in rhetorical prose, working with a distinctive rhythmical system based around alliterative pairings. He used intensifying words, distinctive vocabulary and compounds, rhetorical figures, and repeated phrases as literary devices. These devices lend Wulfstan's homilies their tempo-driven, almost feverish quality, allowing them to build toward multiple climaxes. The genius of his style is based chiefly on sound and parallelsim. The passage below, taken from the "Sermo Lupi", employs numerous rhetorical devices, including alliteration, parallelism, tautology, and rhyme: