Chiasmus
Pronunciation
- IPA: /kaɪˈæËzmÉ™s/
Origin
From Latin chiasmus, from Ancient Greek χιασμός, from χιάζω ("to mark with a chi"), from χ (chi, "chi")
Full definition of chiasmus
Noun
chiasmus
(plural chiasmi)- (rhetoric) An inversion of the relationship between the elements of phrases.
- 1934, H. H. Walker & N. W. Lund "The Literary Sturcture of the Book of Habakkuk", Journal of Biblical Literature 53 (4): 355.The book of Habakkuk has been discovered to consist of a closely knit chiastic structure throughout. This is the first poem of such length to stand revealed as a literary unit of this kind, though chiasmus has already been discovered throughout many psalms...
- 1984, Ethel Grodzins Romm, "Persuasive Writing", American Bar Association Journal 70: 158.John F. Kennedy is more famous for his chiasmus than for many of his policies:
"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." - 2002, Simon R. Slings, "Figures of Speech in Aristophanes", in Andreas Willi (editor), The Language of Greek Comedy, pages 103-104Leeman therefore holds that chiasmus is the basic order in Greek and Latin: antithesis is, he claims, normal for the modern, rational mind, but for the Greeks and Romans chiasmus was more natural.
- 2009, Seyed Ghahreman Safavi & Simon Weightman, RÅ«mÄ«'s Mystical Design: Reading the MathnawÄ«, Book One, page 46The realization that MawlÄnÄ was using parallelism and chiasmus to organize the higher levels of his work has been a major surprise.