Reading Day 3
ChiasmusSF #chiasmus, #desperation, #meanings, #poem
In Chiasmus, the words might jump from one sentence to the other in an x shape. The ‘chi’ stands for x in Greek. ‘In rhetoric, chiasmus or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμα, “crossing”, from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, “to shape like the letter Χ”), is a “reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words”’. (Corbett and Connors 58–59, 74) So, chiasmus is like playing with words, their significance and objectives, in such a way that one phrase appears to contradict the other. Chiasmus can be an allegorical way to use meanings, where questions sometimes seem like satire. Chiastic (adjective): Referring to a figure that repeats concepts in reverse order, in the same or modified form. Without understanding, there is no point of looking at it, since inattention would make you lose the order. In the text by Johnson, she allows you to see it, whereas clarity in Melville’s book is not easily attainable. Allowing for the existence of personification but revising the relation between personifier and personified positioning an opposition
72
