Chiastic structure

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Chiastic structure (also called chiastic pattern or ring structure) is a literary structure used in the Torah, the Bible, as well as in other works. Concepts or ideas are placed in a special symmetric order or pattern in a chiastic structure to emphasize them.

For example, suppose that the first topic in a text is labeled by A, the second topic is labeled by B and the third topic is labeled by C. If the topics in the text appear in the order ABC…CBA so that the first concept that comes up is also the last, the second is the second to last, and so on, the text is said to have a chiastic structure. Also, a chiastic structure can also be of the form ABBAABB…ABBA.

Chiastic structures are sometimes called palistrophes,^[1] chiasms, symmetric structures, ring structures, or concentric structures.

Contents 1 Why Chi? 2 The ABC…CBA chiastic structure 3 The ABBAABB…ABBA chiastic structure 4 Chiasmus as a mnemonic tool 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 References

[edit] Why Chi?

Chi is a Greek letter that is shaped like an X. Chi is made up of two lines crossing each other, so 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.