Parallelism and Chiasmus
Parallelism
and Chiasmus are regarded as two important stylistic devices which often appear
in different literary genres. Even though they are generated differently, their
use, which I would like to concentrate on, seems to be driven by similar
intentions.
Parallelism
means the repetition of a word order in two or more successive sentences: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may
remember. Involve me and I will learn.” It is interesting to look at the
purpose of this stylistic device meaning why it is being used so much since the
Bible until now, mainly for commercial purposes and in political speeches. The
reason may be that it helps to create a bigger impression on the reader because
of its simple, catchy structure. Thus, it produces more effective statements
which by the author are meant to be memorable.
Chiasmus,
on the other hand, plays with crosswise structure of words, subsets and
sentences, hereby building a mirror-inverted structure of one of these elements
in the next part of the sentence: “Never
let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You.” The effect seems similar to the
one of the parallelism, which is to depict an idea concisely for the reader.
The
purpose of the massive effect on the reader may explain the intense and
variegated usage of these two stylistic devices for such a long time and in so
many different sectors of literature.
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