Sunday, February 24, 2013

For Your Puzzling Pleasure...

I present: Riddles!  Answers, as ever, to be found on the appropriately named page above.  Good luck!



1B. 
Four legs, no feet.
One back, one seat.
No head, all dead.
What am I?

2B.
Circle body,
Soft but thin,
Hide like rubber,
Heart like tin.
What is it?

3B.
I am bound, but not imprisoned.
I have leaves, but never grow.
I say much, but am silent.
I hold thoughts, but cannot know.
What am I?

(Also, for those of you who are regular readers of The Crusader, I do admit that some of the riddles that may appear on my blog will occasionally also feature in that publication at an earlier or later date.  While this is not true of the March paper, I thought I ought to include the disclaimer to forestall any disgruntled remarks.)


Friday, February 15, 2013

A Literary Look at: Chiasmus!


If someone walked up to you in a supermarket and suddenly said, "Chiasmus!", it seems to me you might reasonably (though not quite accurately) respond with something like, "Gesundheit!"  -- Am I wrong?  
Well.  Anyway.  Chiasmus:  I'll wager you've never heard of this little literary gadget.  It's dashed useful, though, which is why I'd like to introduce it to you.  One of my favorite rhetorical figures, chiasmus is so named because it, according to Merriam-Webster, is "an inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chiasmus).  More simply put, it's language in the shape of an "x."  Think a-b-b-a, if that helps -- I love chocolate, and chocolate loves me (for example).  Not to get too bogged down in grammatical details (which has a nasty habit of making people stop reading an otherwise decent blog...), I here present a smattering of thoughts regarding chiasmus and what it can do, which, I hope, will spark a bit of interest in you for this splendid tool of language.  Without further ado:

Warping With Words

By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2011
To turn backwards and forwards, to right and reverse, and thereby to challenge the mind, engaging the intellect in a search for truth – this is power of chiasmus.   A daring device, chiasmus bends the brain and compels contemplation. In the Encomium of Helen, for example, Gorgias uses chiasmus to posit that “it is an equal mistake to blame the praisable and praise the blamable” (75).  This sentence requires one to ponder, however briefly, in order to apprehend its full meaning.  By “praisable,” does Gorgias mean “able to be praised” or “worthy of praise” (75)?  And what of “blamable” (Gorgias 75)?  The power of chiasmus rests in its ability to cause men to think and seek some degree of truth.  The best kind of chiasmus will point to Truth itself.
Like any tool, though, chiasmus can be corrupted.  When used with the fallacy of equivocation, chiasmus conceals rather than reveals.  Instead of illuminating, such chiasmus confuses.  Related to this is Gorgias’ declaration that: “[i]t is the duty of one and the same man both to speak the needful rightly and to refute (the unrightfully spoken” (75).  Equivocation in any circumstance fails to “speak the needful rightly” and thus goes beyond dishonesty, neglecting the “duty…to refute (the unrightfully spoken” (Gorgias 75).  But equivocation has another fault: theft.  By confusing the meaning of terms, equivocation can make it appear that one has won an argument when, in reality, one has simply avoided the matter at hand.  Hence, deliberate equivocation sins both against others, by withholding knowledge to which they have a right (“You shall not steal”), and against truth (“You shall not bear false witness”) (Exodus 20:15-16).  To avoid this double trap and use chiasmus – and all rhetoric – well, we must beware of warping truth with words used equivocally.  We must scrutinize closely whether we are wording clever twists or merely twisting clever words.  

Works Cited
Gorgias. “Encomium of Helen.” The Belmont Abbey College Reader. Ed. Angela
Mitchell Miss. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 75. Print.
The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. London, Eng.: Oxford UP,                        1966. Print. 

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Poem: The Raid of the Weigh


+JMJ

Complete with Unsolicited Authorial NOTES (Needless & Otherwise Tedious Explanatory Stuff) below! Enjoy...

The Raid of the Weigh

By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2012

Like thoughts unthinkable
They broke upon the shore
Like steel unbreakable
They swelled the fearsome roar
In salt-waves and the hide
Of lifeless forest beasts
They struck upon the town
And sunk in to their feasts
Revelry waxed raucous
The world began to spin
The new wine soon
Would take its toll
And wrap the night back in
Where lay in sleep
The sober few
Who alone could tell
The exploits and
The solemn still
Of one long ending spell –
Late up came
The midnight moon and
Later yet the dawn,
Where rested in the meadow still
A tawny-golden fawn;
The shouting of the night
Gave place unto the day
Where none were left
Save one weak slave –
The mem’ry of the Weigh.

Notes:
 This poem is the story of a town, called the Weigh, which is raided by Norse or Germanic savages (hence the hides) from the seacoast (hence the waves).  They take the town and feast all night, and in the morning, only one slave is left who made it out alive (in my imagination, at least, he’s made it out to the meadow outside the town), making him the last person who remembers the town and its people.  Hence, he is the “mem’ry of the Weigh.”  Also, the “one long ending spell” could be a number of things I expect, but I was thinking primarily of the night of feasting which, though long and perhaps spell-like to those in it, is ending as dawn approaches.  The fawn is just an aid to help convey the image of the meadow (and, I confess, the meter...).