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Chiastic structure
Literary technique in narrative motifs and other textual passages
Literary technique in narrative motifs and other textual passages
Chiastic structure, or chiastic pattern, is a literary technique in narrative motifs and other textual passages. An example of chiastic structure would be two ideas, A and B, together with variants A' and B', being presented as A,B,B',A'. Chiastic structures that involve more components are sometimes called "ring structures" or "ring compositions". These may be regarded as chiasmus scaled up from words and clauses to larger segments of text.
These often symmetrical patterns are commonly found in ancient literature such as the epic poetry of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Classicist Bruno Gentili describes this technique as "the cyclical, circular, or 'ring' pattern (ring composition). Here the idea that introduced a compositional section is repeated at its conclusion, so that the whole passage is framed by material of identical content". Meanwhile, in classical prose, scholars often find chiastic narrative techniques in the Histories of Herodotus:
Various chiastic structures are also seen in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Quran.
Etymology
The term chiastic derives from the mid-17th century term chiasmus, which refers to a crosswise arrangement of concepts or words that are repeated in reverse order. Chiasmus derives from the Greek word el, a word that is khiazein, marked with the letter khi. From khi comes chi.
Chi is made up of two lines crossing each other as in the shape of an X. The line that starts leftmost on top, comes down, and is rightmost on the bottom, and vice versa. If one thinks of the lines as concepts, one sees that concept A, which comes first, is also last, and concept B, which comes after A, comes before A. If one adds in more lines representing other concepts, one gets a chiastic structure with more concepts.
Mnemonic device
Oral literature is especially rich in chiastic structure, possibly as an aid to memorization and oral performance. In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, for instance, Cedric Whitman finds chiastic patterns "of the most amazing virtuosity" that simultaneously perform both aesthetic and mnemonic functions, permitting the oral poet easily to recall the basic structure of the composition during performances. Steve Reece has demonstrated several ambitious ring compositions in Homer's Odyssey and compared their aesthetic and mnemonic functions with those of several South Slavic songs.{{Cite journal|last=Reece|first=Steve|title=The Three Circuits of the Suitors: A Ring Composition in Odyssey 17-22|url=https://www.academia.edu/30641105|journal=Oral Tradition
Use in the Hebrew Bible
Chiasms in the Hebrew Bible include, but are not limited to, the following examples:
- Genesis 6:10–9:18a (including a numerical mini-chiasm)
- Genesis 17:1–25
- Genesis 32:1–31 (including a name-changing mini-chiasm)
- Genesis 37:3–11
- Genesis 37:12–36
- Genesis 38:1–30
- Genesis 39:1–23
- Genesis 40:1–23
- Genesis 41:1–57
- Genesis 42:1–38
Genesis flood narrative
Gordon Wenham (1978) analyzed the Genesis flood narrative and concluded that it is essentially an elaborate chiasm. Based on the earlier study of grammatical structure by F. I. Andersen (1974), Wenham illustrated a chiastic structure as displayed in the following two tables.
| A: Noah and his sons (Gen 6:10) |
|---|
Within this overall structure, there is a numerical mini-chiasm of 7s, 40s, and 150s:
| α: Seven days waiting to enter Ark (7:4) |
|---|
Genesis 17
William Ramey has compiled several chiasms in the Hebrew Bible, including Genesis 17:1–25 (quoted in Donald Ostrowski 2006).
| A: Abram's age ("When Abram was 99 years old..."; 1a) |
|---|
Book of Daniel
In 1986, William H. Shea proposed that the Book of Daniel is composed of a double-chiasm. He argued that the chiastic structure is emphasized by the two languages that the book is written in: Aramaic and Hebrew. The first chiasm is written in Aramaic from chapters 2-7 following an ABC...CBA pattern. The second chiasm is in Hebrew from chapters 8–12, also using the ABC...CBA pattern. However, Shea represents as "D", a break in the center of the pattern.
Use in the Christian New Testament
Form critic Nils Lund acknowledged Jewish and classical patterns of writing in the New Testament, including the use of chiastic structures throughout.
Use in the Quran
While there are many examples of chiastic structure in the Quran, perhaps the most well known is in the 'Verse of the Throne' or 'Ayat al-Kursi'. The verse contains 9 sentences which exhibit chiasmus, but perhaps more interesting is that it is found in the longest chapter of the Quran, Al-Baqara, which itself contains a fractal chiastic structure in its 286 verses, i.e. where each (outer) chiasm is composed of (inner) chiastic structures reflected in some sense in the analogue outer chiasm. One such analysis of the chapter is shown below (from;{{Cite web|last=Zakariya|first=Abu|date=21 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924034743/https://www.islam21c.com/islamic-thought/ring-theory-the-qurans-structural-coherence/ |archive-date=24 September 2015
| A: Belief (1-20) |
|---|
Use in the ''Primary Chronicle''
Use in the Book of Mormon
Chiastic structure is found throughout the Book of Mormon, for example in Mosiah 5:8–9:
| And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. |
|---|
ABC…CBA pattern
''Beowulf''
In literary texts with a possible oral origin, such as Beowulf, chiastic or ring structures are often found on an intermediate level, that is, between the (verbal and/or grammatical) level of chiasmus and the higher level of chiastic structure such as noted in the Torah. John D. Niles provides examples of chiastic figures on all three levels. He notes that for the instances of ll. 12–19, the announcement of the birth of (Danish) Beowulf, are chiastic, more or less on the verbal level, that of chiasmus. Then, each of the three main fights are organized chiastically, a chiastic structure on the level of verse paragraphs and shorter passages. For instance, the simplest of these three, the fight with Grendel, is schematized as follows:
A: Preliminaries
- Grendel approaching
- Grendel rejoicing
- Grendel devouring Handscioh :B: Grendel's wish to flee ("fingers cracked")
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