Sounds

how poetry, a spoken art, turns language into music

Chiasmus (GC)

Definition: The repetition of a pair of sounds, words, phrases, or ideas in reverse order, producing an abba structure. Expanded on below, note that chiasmus is closely linked to antimetabole.

Note that historically, the meaning of this phrase is closely bound to antimetabole and the term chiasmus first appeared in English in 1871.

Examples:

· In Paradise Lost, Satan attempts to rally the rebel angels with “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”

· In Genesis 9:6, it is said “Whoso sheds the blood of man, / By man his blood shall be shed.”

· By Quintilian is “Non, ut edam, vivo; sed, ut vivam, edo” (I do not live that I may eat, but eat that I may live).

History:

The term chiasmus first appeared in English in 1871, but the term is closely bound up with that of antimetabole, whose use can date back to George Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie in 1589. The essence of chaismus unveils the “natural invertability” of a hierarchy of two terms, which can be seen all the way back to Ugaritic texts around 1400-1200 BCE, possibly having influenced the composition of the Old Testament, as seen in the example above.

Uses:

Chaismus can be employed in small cases like those seen in the examples given, but it has also been employed on a much larger scale to mirror themes or ideas. The Iliad and the Odyssey are famously full of broader “ring” structures stretching reflected themes across the whole of each epic, called chiastic structure (when the literary techniques and narrative motifs are mirrored).

(Written by Gabriel Cowley)

Chiasmus (WB)

Definition:

History:

My Response:

What is this poetic element like?

Example:

Parallelism (BW)

Definition:

History:

My Response:

What is this poetic element like?

Example:

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse