Chiasmus – 2.

Here are two famous chiasmuses: (OK chiasmoi then if you must).

All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.

(Oscar Wilde).

“It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men.” (The often quoted Mae West.)

OK So chiasmus is very clever.

Let us build on that.

Words have meanings and of course chiasmus can enhance the meanings: A is B; but B is A.

Beauty is truth: truth beauty. (Keats).

You can play with this.

How about a chiasmus of vowels?

Symmetry of vowels by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

(In) An – Ah – Oo –-- I --– Oo – Ah – An

Poets love this. Here is Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Beneath the thunders of the upper deep.

(Be) ee-e-u-e---o---e-u-e-ee

Not a bad idea if you want a phrase to sound good on your Mission Statement or strapline.

It is very difficult to do this – unless you happen to be a genius. Test your skills now. Any sequence of vowels will do.

Now try it with consonants.

(Confession: I myself, genius that I am, cannot do this. But then, I am not Byron or Coleridge.)

Or you can do a chiasmus with adjectives – nouns – nouns adjectives.

Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

(John Milton)

By day the frolic and the dance by night.

Samuel Johnson.

Advertisers use the chiasmus too.

You like what we do: We do what you like. 

Eat to live or live to eat? We do both.

This is quite complicated to think up. If you have got that sort of mind, though, use it!