Thursday, September 25, 2008
A Perspective
from bell hooks: Feminist Theory from Margin to Center: "Living as we did - on the edge - we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We focussed our attention on the center as well as the margin. We understood both."
Chiasmus: Definition and Examples
Chiasmus: Another definition with examples.
A rhetorical figure in which elements are presented in the order ABBA. It's named for the Greek letter chi (which looks like an "X"). The "X" suggests the crossing that characterizes the figure. Some examples:
This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.
[On The Beggar's Opera, a fabulously successful play written by John Gay and produced by John Rich:] It made Gay rich and Rich gay.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
We can see the chiasmus in the last example (with "country" and "you") if we lay it out this way (in clumsy ASCII art, but I'm too lazy to work up a graphic):
Ask not what your country can do for you,
\ /
\ /
\ /
X
/ \
/ \
/ \
but what you can do for your country.
Chiasmus doesn't have to be the same words: it's often the same parts of speech in ABBA order. Here's Milton:
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace. (PL 7.216)
Notice it's imperative-vocative, vocative-imperative — or, if that's unclear, "Do something, you; you, do something."
A chiasmus can get even more complicated: not only ABBA, but ABCCBA. Consider Genesis 9:6:
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.
Notice shed-blood-man, man-blood-shed: ABC, CBA.
A rhetorical figure in which elements are presented in the order ABBA. It's named for the Greek letter chi (which looks like an "X"). The "X" suggests the crossing that characterizes the figure. Some examples:
This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.
[On The Beggar's Opera, a fabulously successful play written by John Gay and produced by John Rich:] It made Gay rich and Rich gay.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
We can see the chiasmus in the last example (with "country" and "you") if we lay it out this way (in clumsy ASCII art, but I'm too lazy to work up a graphic):
Ask not what your country can do for you,
\ /
\ /
\ /
X
/ \
/ \
/ \
but what you can do for your country.
Chiasmus doesn't have to be the same words: it's often the same parts of speech in ABBA order. Here's Milton:
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace. (PL 7.216)
Notice it's imperative-vocative, vocative-imperative — or, if that's unclear, "Do something, you; you, do something."
A chiasmus can get even more complicated: not only ABBA, but ABCCBA. Consider Genesis 9:6:
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.
Notice shed-blood-man, man-blood-shed: ABC, CBA.
from Jenna Payton via APS
From Fredderick Douglass chap #10 pg #110:
"He asked me what I wanted. I told him, to let me get a new home; that as sure as I lived with Mr. Covey again, I should live with but to die with him; that Covey would surely kill me; he was in a fair way for it. Master Thomas ridiculed the idea that there was any danger of Mr. Covey; that he was a good man, and that he could not think of taking me from him; that, should he do so, he would lose the whole year's wages; that I belonged to Mr. Covey for one year, and that I must go back to him, come what might; and that I must not trouble him with any more stories, or that he would himself get hold of me."
Example of "chiasmus" because it shows Douglass' personal crossing of making a change while dealing with his enslavement. Even though Douglass is still a slave, his living and safety conditions have been questioned.
See you tomorrow!
"He asked me what I wanted. I told him, to let me get a new home; that as sure as I lived with Mr. Covey again, I should live with but to die with him; that Covey would surely kill me; he was in a fair way for it. Master Thomas ridiculed the idea that there was any danger of Mr. Covey; that he was a good man, and that he could not think of taking me from him; that, should he do so, he would lose the whole year's wages; that I belonged to Mr. Covey for one year, and that I must go back to him, come what might; and that I must not trouble him with any more stories, or that he would himself get hold of me."
Example of "chiasmus" because it shows Douglass' personal crossing of making a change while dealing with his enslavement. Even though Douglass is still a slave, his living and safety conditions have been questioned.
See you tomorrow!
from Jessica Stewart via APS
- How weather played a part in a memory that you have. Memory and weather linked? 9/16
- 9/18 Prompt: Most traumatic experience, and how it shaped you. The most traumatic experience of my life has been the death of my mother. The things that I saw and encountered were very eye-opening. This has made me take on a different perspective on life than I had before. There were a lot of things that I saw that made me realize that we are human and that we do not live forever
- 9/18 Prompt: Most traumatic experience, and how it shaped you. The most traumatic experience of my life has been the death of my mother. The things that I saw and encountered were very eye-opening. This has made me take on a different perspective on life than I had before. There were a lot of things that I saw that made me realize that we are human and that we do not live forever
Chiasmus
"He spoke but to command, and commanded but to be obeyed; he dealt sparingly with his words, and bountifully with his whip, never using the former where the latter would answer as well."
This chiasmus was on Page 66.
This chiasmus was on Page 66.
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