Chiasmus
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Chiasmus is a figure of speech based on inverted parallelism. It is a rhetorical figure in which two clauses are related to each another through a reversal of terms in order to make a larger point. In Latin in particular, it was used to articulate balance or order within the text in which it was included.
Today, chiasmus is applied fairly broadly to any "criss-cross" structure, although in classical rhetoric, it would have been distinguished from other similar devices, especially antimetabole. In its classical application, chiasmus would have been used for structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases.
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Examples
Chiasmus: Narrow Sense
These examples show the use of chiasmus in its narrower, classical, sense. Note that the parallel structures do not repeat the same words:
- "By day the frolic, and the dance by night". Samuel Johnson The Vanity of Human Wishes.
- "His time a moment, and a point his space." Alexander Pope Essay on Man, Epistle I.
Chiasmus: Broader Sense
These examples are often quoted by modern commentators to demonstrate chiasmus, although most are examples of antimetabole.
- "...ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
- "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America." [1] (http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/farewell.phtml) Jimmy Carter Farewell Address
- "What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog." Dwight D. Eisenhower January 1958 speech to the Republican National Committee
- "Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men." Line spoken by Mae West in I'm No Angel (1933):
- StarKist tuna advertisements from the 1980s included "Sorry, Charlie, StarKist wants tunas that taste good, not tunas with good taste." (N.B. This is more an example of antanaclasis)
- The physicist John Wheeler explained general relativity with "Matter tells space how to curve. Space tells matter how to move."
- There are examples of chiasmus in the Bible. For example, Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed."
- An earlier example, from Croesus dates back to the 6th century BC: "In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons."
- Several examples of chiasmus exist in the Book of Mormon. The entire chapter 36 of the book of Alma is written in a chiasmus format. Many believe that such overt use of chiasmus was beyond the abilities of Joseph Smith. This is considered by his followers to be evidence of the work's validity, though it can be argued that this rhetorical device was well known in his day if only for its presence in the Bible even if it had not yet been named as a specific rhetorical device.
Chiasmus may be implied, as when Kermit the Frog says "Time's fun when you're having flies" or Mae West says "A hard man is good to find," or Jethro Tull's "In the beginning Man created God."
Chiasmus is not limited to an exchange of words; it can also involve the exchange of letters or syllables, as in "I’d Rather Have A Bottle In Front Of Me (Than A Frontal Lobotomy)," or the flipping of syntactical structures, as in "I love too much and too little hate."
This criss-crossing term derives its name from the X-shaped Greek letter χ (chi). An informal term for chiasmus introduced by Calvin Trillin and used particularly among political speechwriters is reversible raincoat sentences.
External links and references
- A website dedicated to the subject (http://www.chiasmus.com/) from the author of Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You: Chiasmus and a World of Quotations That Say What They Mean and Mean What They Say (ISBN 0670878278)
- Political Speech Wordplay at the RNC (http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=02-Sep-2004&prgId=17) from NPR's Day to Day
- Inauguration Speech Do's and Don'ts (http://slate.msn.com/id/97157/), Slate-published email exchange between presidential speechwriters Peter Robinson and Michael Waldman
See Also
- Antanaclasis
- Antimetabole
- Figure of Speech
- Rhetoric
- Spoonerism
- Synchysis (the reverse of the chiasmus)