Antithesis

Juxtaposing contrasting ideas.1 Mark Forsyth says of it, “First you mention one thing: then you mention another,”2 and breaks it down as, “X is Y, and not X is not Y.”3

Examples include:

  • “The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.” —Oscar Wilde2
  • “Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.” —Samuel Johnson4

Wildean antithesis is mentioning one thing that everyone knows, then in the second statement starting off as expected but throwing a twist.2

A long list of antitheses is called a progressio.5

  1. Definition and Examples of Antithesis in Rhetoric ↩

  2. The Elements of Eloquence pg. 23 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. The Elements of Eloquence pg. 24 ↩

  4. The Elements of Eloquence pg. 27 ↩

  5. The Elements of Eloquence pg. 26 ↩

Notes mentioning this note

Antithesis
Antithesis Juxtaposing contrasting ideas.1 Mark Forsyth says of it, “First you mention one thing: then you mention another,”2 and breaks...
Merism
Merism Can be confused for [[Antithesis]].1 It’s about naming a subject’s parts in contrasting phrases to represent the totality. It...
Figures of rhetoric
Figures of rhetoric [[Different types of repetition]] [[Alliteration]] [[Antithesis]] [[Merism]] [[Hendiadys]] [[Synaesthesia]] [[Tricolon]]
Polyptoton
Polyptoton This is the repeated use of one word as in different parts of speech or grammatical structures.1 It’s a...