chiasmus
ki-az'-mus Gk. "a diagonal arrangement"
Repetition of ideas in inverted order
Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order (not to be mistaken with antimetabole, in which identical words are repeated and inverted).
Shakespeare uses this figure frequently:
"Oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse."
King John (1591)
No comments:
Post a Comment