The richer people get, the tighter they become, and the tighter they become, the richer they get. The structure of antimetabole also works well for ironic phrases, sometimes in a racy way, such as these famous quotes: Writers use antimetabole in a wide array of contexts: to produce powerful arguments, to compare two related things or concepts, to present paradoxes, or to generate a comedic effect. 2.

Inflectional Morphology. - Contact Us - Privacy Policy - Terms and Conditions, Definition and Examples of Literary Terms, “Eat to live, not live to eat.” – Socrates, “I go where I please, and I please where I go.” – Attributed to Duke Nukem, “He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.” – The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999), “We do what we like and we like what we do.” – Andrew W.K., “Party Hard”, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. paired construction (grammar) Ordinal Numbers. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Shell Noun. The reason antimetabole is popular in political speeches is the same reason some are skeptical of it. In fact, in many cases the repeated phrases wouldn't make grammatical sense if they were simply an exact reversal of the original word order. Then they act and do things accordingly.". Generally, chiasmus allows more complexity than antimetabole because antimetabole needs to repeat the same words, but for this same reason antimetabole can sometimes seem snappier and more clever than chiasmus. Here are other examples of paradox in antimetabole: When antimetabole meets wit, it has a comic effect, largely because it's perfect for ironic statements.

The dashing trio's rallying cry in The Three Musketeers is a famous example of antimetabole. So in the light of these facts, it can be deduced that all the antimetaboles are chiasmus, but not all instances of chiasmus are antimetaboles. A chiasmus is a sentence repeated inversely. Instant downloads of all 1360 LitChart PDFs. For instance, in this line from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, an adjective ("witty") turns into a noun ("wit") when repeated, and a noun ("fool") turns into an adjective ("foolish") so that the sentence will make grammatical sense: In the expression below, the antimetabole is a perfectly reversed repetition, but the subjects of the two phrases are different (one is about the French, the other about Americans), making the two clauses of the sentence slightly asymmetrical: The French work to live, whereas Americans live to work. Antimetabole's repetition and formulaic structure make it perfect for catchy phrases and popular expressions. If you look around the Internet, you'll find that there's a lot of disagreement over whether or not antimetabole is a type of chiasmus. This has the potential to create a false dichotomy—a misleading opposition of two ideas that aren't necessarily opposed to each other, leaving out other, more nuanced possibilities. This is because the two clauses have opposite meanings, but the words and the grammatical makeup are dissimilar. The rock landed on us"). Jeffrey Rosen: If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who has been indicted. Refine any search. Jules Renard: It is not how old you are, but how you are old. For example: 1. Advertising slogan of Bounce fabric softener sheet: Stops static before static stops you.

Ray Bradbury: You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance. Antimetabole comes from the Greek phrase, "turning about in the opposite direction.". Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Other times, a speaker or writer using antimetabole may not be aware of how they are reducing a complicated topic to something that is overly simplistic. The following are excellent examples of antimetaboles used in notable literature: A. J. Liebling: I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better. Take this quote by legendary college basketball coach John Wooden: By not preparing at all, one in fact is preparing—for failure (there's the paradox). The dream is the truth. Struggling with distance learning? Examples of Antimetabole Socrates Antimetabole makes an excellent rhetorical device for philosophers like Socrates who might need to stress a particular ethical or philosophical issue. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Here’s a quick and simple definition: Antimetabole is a figure of speech in which a phrase is repeated, but with the order of words reversed. Since the time of Socrates, we see the use of antimetabole. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. For example: “It is not about the years in your life, but about the life in your years.” A sentence like this can be called an antimetabole because it is appealing, correct (logically and grammatically) and has a message to convey to the readers. People, after studying literature for a while, start thinking that they can churn out antimetaboles with a snap of a finger. The way that the use of antimetabole here condenses this idea into a concise, declarative statement gives it a feeling of power and gravitas. Antimetabole comes from a Greek phrase that means, "turning about in the opposite direction," and which sums up the effect of words being repeated in reverse order, sort of like retracing steps on a path. Antimetabole is tricky to use: it can be moving, memorable, and persuasive, but it can also feel trite and predictable if used poorly. For example, the popular saying by Havelock Ellis: “Charm is a woman’s strength, strength is a man’s charm,” the sentence is an example of chiasmus, but is not an antimetabole. The Roman rhetorician Quintilian identified antimetabole as a type of antithesis. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” Malcolm X, “Malcolm X”, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” – Billy Preston. Zora Neale Hurston: Women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. For antimetabole to be effective, it does not only have to be grammatically correct, but should also be logical. .. Seventeen hundred years later, a journalist used the same form to complain about the unfortunate relationship between members of his own profession and the politicians they report: 'Our cynicism begets their fakery and their fakery begets our cynicism' . The saying has remained in circulation until today—in part because antimetabole makes it so memorable. According to scholars, when a sentence is repeated by reversing it, so as to convey an idea or stress a point, it is called chiasmus. All Rights Reserved. Wooden stresses the link between both preparation and success, as well as preparation and failure. And memories are many and varied: memories of those who died with weapons in their hands; and those who died with prayers on their lips. In the first clause, he presents how things should be, and then he reversed the word order to say how they are—a common use of antimetabole. He first makes reference to the predominant narrative of colonialism—that white Europeans discovered America—then reverses the word order to make his own argument: that the arrival of white people to the Americas, along with the intersecting legacies of slavery and colonialism that came with them, wreaked catastrophic damage on entire races of people.

Antimetabole appears in a wide variety of contexts, from jokes and idioms to political speeches and literature.

“You like it; it likes you.” 2. Antimetabole is derived from a Greek word which means “turning about.” It is a literary term or device that involves repeating a phrase in reverse order. But since the heart of antimetabole is the inverted repetition of two phrases or clauses, the repetition can also be spaced farther apart, embedded in longer sentences or even separate sentences.

In the process of changing their syntactic position in relation to each other, these terms change their grammatical and conceptual relation as well. The Difference Between Antimetabole and Chiasmus, Binomials in English: Definition and Examples, Brief Introductions to Common Figures of Speech, Definition and Examples of Associative Meaning, Definition and Examples of the Topoi in Rhetoric, Scheme (Rhetoric): Definition and Examples, Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia, M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester, B.A., English, State University of New York. .. It can also suggest irony at the way things are (compared to expectations). . What is antimetabole?