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Chiasmus vs Antithesis - What's the difference?

chiasmus | antithesis |

In rhetoric terms the difference between chiasmus and antithesis

is that chiasmus is an inversion of the relationship between the elements of phrases while antithesis is a device by which two contrasting ideas are juxtaposed in parallel form.

chiasmus

Noun

(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 103-104
  • 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.
  • * 2009 , Seyed Ghahreman Safavi & Simon Weightman, R?m?'s Mystical Design: Reading the Mathnaw?, Book One , page 46
  • The realization that Mawl?n? was using parallelism and chiasmus to organize the higher levels of his work has been a major surprise.

    Derived terms

    * chiastic

    antithesis

    English

    Noun

    (antitheses)
  • A proposition that is the diametric opposite of some other proposition.
  • (rhetoric) A device by which two contrasting ideas are juxtaposed in parallel form.
  • Antonyms

    * epitome