chiasmus

plural chiasmi · plural chiasmuses

1. countablerhetoricuncountableAn inversion of the relationship between the elements of phrases.

   The realization that Mawlānā was using parallelism and chiasmus to organize the higher levels of his work has been a major surprise.

   2009, Seyed Ghahreman Safavi, Simon Weightman, Rūmī's Mystical Design: Reading the Mathnawī, Book One, page 46

   3 more examples

   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[…]

   1934, H. H. Walker, N. W. Lund, “The Literary Structure of the Book of Habakkuk”, in Journal of Biblical Literature, 53 (4): 355

   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."

   1984, Ethel Grodzins Romm, “Persuasive Writing”, in American Bar Association Journal, 70: 158

   Leeman 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.

   2002, Simon R. Slings, “Figures of Speech in Aristophanes”, in Andreas Willi, editor, The Language of Greek Comedy, pages 103–104

   Synonyms: chiasm