Antimetabole
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary:
Top
An·ti·me·tab·o·le
n.
(Rhet.) A figure in which the same words or ideas are repeated in transposed order.
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms:
Top
antimetabole
antimetabole
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Top
Antimetabole
In rhetoric, antimetabole (
/æntɨməˈtæbəliː/ AN-ti-mə-TAB-ə-lee) is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order (e.g., "I know what I like, and I like what I know"). It is similar to chiasmus although chiasmus does not use repetition of the same words or phrases.
|
Contents
|
Examples
- "Eat to live, not live to eat." Attributed to Socrates
- Latin: Miser ex potente fiat ex misero potens Seneca the Younger, Thyestes, Act I.10 (let it make misery from power and power from misery).
- "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
- "You stood up for America, now America must stand up for you." [Barack Obama] - December 14, 2011.
Etymology
It is derived from the Greek ἀντιμεταβολή from ἀντί (antí), "against, opposite" and μεταβολή (metabolē), "turning about, change".
See also
References
- Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved.
Read more
