CHIASMUS  

REPETITIO of of a pattern AB in reverse order ABBA.

甲乙乙甲法 ABBA, a minimal rondo form.

Hypernym
  • REPETITIORHETORICAL FIGURE in which one and the same lexical, phonological, syntactic, or semantic element is repeated for rhetorical effect./...x...x.../: non-adjacent repetition of the same word, contrast morphological reduplication.
    • RHETORICAL FIGURE形式詞格　RHETORICAL DEVICE which mainly consists in the distribution of expressions in a passage.
Hyponym
OED: A grammatical figure by which the order of words in one of two parallel clauses is inverted in the other.

REF: Lausberg 723 gives many examples from Latin but notes that the concept was not current among the ancient rhetoricians.

Ancient Chinese: The grammatical rules of Chinese militate against the wide use of this figure because they do no permit free word order. The surface structure, however, does occur, as Unger notes:

人同類而智殊。

卜貞：御 CONDUCT RITUAL OF PURIFICATION 于丁三牢羌一。 HB1.26.12 (Chang Tsung-tung p. 77)

NB: The question is whether the occasional presence of chiastic surface structure entitles one to speak of a figure of speech. I feel sure that it is wrong to speak of this figure of speech in ancient Chinese literature because there is no evidence that it was consciously cultivated on any scale, as it manifestly was in Latin, although even in that language there appears to have been no technical term for the chiasmus.

子曰：

誦詩讀書，

與古人居。

讀書誦詩，

與古人期。

Ba3i zi3 qua2n shu1 百子全書 , 5 volume edition, Cha2ngsha4: Yue4lu4shu!she4, 1993, vol. 1, p. 100

Rhetorical device locations: 26
  • 郭店語叢 凡物/有本有化，
  • 管子 一曰文、二曰武、三曰威、四曰德，

    文 / 武 // 威 / 德

  • 韓非子 而肯聽習問知， 即不成迷也 今眾人之所以欲成功 而反為敗者 生於不知道理 而不肯問知而聽能

    肯聽習問知 / 問知而聽能

  • 韓非子 君明而嚴， 則群臣忠 君懦而闇

    明而嚴 / 懦而闇

  • 韓非子 此皆賢且智也， 豈愚且不肖乎
  • 孔雀東南飛 今日大風寒
  • 道德經 惟恍惟惚。 忽兮恍兮
  • 論衡 有死生壽夭之命，

    死生壽夭

  • 論衡 亦有貴賤貧富之命。

    貴賤貧富

  • 呂氏春秋 貴富而不知道， 適足以為患 不如貧賤

    貴富：貧賤

  • 論語 「學而不思則罔， 思而不學則殆

    Note that the two problematic cases of CHIASMUS are manifestly placed together for their rhetorical similarity.

  • 論語 必有忠信如丘者焉， 不如丘之好學也

    It does not say 好學不如丘 .

  • 論語 舉一隅不以三隅反，

    I am NOT saying that this is a valid case. But it deserves consideration when the matter is under discussion.

  • 論語 「舉直錯諸枉， 能使枉者直

    Again a problematic and perhaps even irrelevant case, but it is worth keepingin mind.

  • 論語 「舉直錯諸枉， 能使枉者直
  • 論語 見小利則大事不成。」
  • 論語 「君子而不仁者有矣夫？ 未有小人而仁者也
  • 孟子 兵革非不堅利也，

    堅 goes with 革 and 利 goes with 兵 . Perhaps the order is euphonically motivated.

  • 莊子 以是其所非 而非其所是
  • 莊子 欲是其所非 而非其所是
  • 莊子 　　是亦因彼。 彼是方生之說也

    very loose, but still.

  • 莊子 方生方死， 方死方生
  • 莊子 方可方不可， 方不可方可
  • 莊子 因是因非， 因非因是
  • 莊子 彼亦一是非， 此亦一是非
  • 莊子 无謂有謂， 有謂无謂