/1 have the same tattoo." Here Makoha interrupts the
chiasmic loop of memory.
Undoubtedly, one of the reasons I got into literary criticism was that each week the sermon--the 'teaching', as it is typically called--was followed by debate: debate over hermeneutics, epistemology, historical criticism, ethical adjudication, reception theory, redaction, and forms--parallelisms, parables,
chiasmic narrative structures, metalepsis, etc.--as well as, occasionally, careful to-and-fro on politics, citizenship.
A substantial article might be devoted to analysis of its organization, as the speaking voice modulates--rising and falling, speeding up and slowing down--through a variety of tones and emotions (expectation, surprise, excitement, wonder, amusement, and joy) and of the range of rhetorical figures and poetic devices employed, right through to the
chiasmic structure (abba) of the concluding line, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night." But distinguishing between authors requires a more mundane approach.
Thus, Foucault describes the passage from relations of sovereignty to relations of discipline as a
chiasmic reversal.
Murphy, "
Chiasmic Cosmology and Creation's Functional Integrity," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 53, no.
In formulating the very pleasing
chiasmic structure analysis, Jakobson implicitly makes certain presuppositions, which, when made explicit and critically examined, reveal that the gender features of the declensional system do not have the mirror image properties regarding absence and presence of "something" which form the basis of Jakobson's chiasmus.
However, at the same time as the opposite colour-coding distinguishes the two characters, the
chiasmic mise en scene compels us to identify them and moreover thwarts our desire for coherent symbolism.
This organization reflects Diaz's general thesis that there is a "
chiasmic relationship" (xi) between the two extremes of Borges's work: on the one hand, history, the emphasis on Argentina, the criollo dialect, gauchos, knife fighting; and on the other, the eternal, the mystic labyrinth maker, metaphysical puzzles, and "nesting realities" (xi).
Because "Pearl" fits on a single page, we can take in its
chiasmic structure.
In other words, we cannot have total access to the deep significance of the relations of influence, if we do not attempt to understand, in a
chiasmic relation, the sense of history and the sense of literature.