Chiasmus and Culture

Anyone who has heard of chiasmus is likely to think of it as no more than a piece of rhetorical playfulness, at times challenging, though useful for supplying a memorable sententious note or for performing a pirouette of syntax and thought. Going beyond traditional rhetoric, this volume is concerned with the possibility of using the figure of chiasmus to model a broad array of phenomena, from human relations to artistic creation. In the process, it provides the first book-length study not of chiasmus, the rhetorical figure, but of chiastic thought. The contributors are concerned with chiastic inversion and its place in social interactions, cultural creation, and more generally human thought and experience.They explore from a variety of angles what the unsettling logic of chiasmus (from the Greek meaning “cross-wise”), has to tell us about the world, human relations, cultural patterns, psychology, and artistic and poetic creation.

Anthony Paul lectured on translation studies and English literature at the University of Amsterdam from 1972 to 2002. He is the author of The Torture of the Mind: Macbeth, Tragedy and Chiasmus (1992) and has published several works of literary fiction and translations. His latest novel, More than a Dream, has been published as an e-book (2013).