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In rhetoric, antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in reverse grammatical order (ex: "I know what I like, and like what I know"). It is similar to chiasmus although chiasmus does not use repetition of the same words or phrases.
Examples
- Latin: Miser ex potente fiat ex misero potens Seneca the Younger, Thyestes, Act I.10 (let it make misery from power and power from misery)
- "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
- "Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: 'This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!' " James Boswell Life of Johnson
- "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Winston Churchill, The Lord Mayor's Luncheon, Mansion House, November 10, 1942.
References
- Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.
See also
"Antimetabole"