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Study Group  2ed run 

            Parallelism in Chinese and Western Literature

Author: Ndrew H. Plaks (Princeton U)

 Thesis statement:
It is impossible to avoid to draw attention on obtrusive aesthetic rhythms of parallel construction in classical Chinese Literature

          In Chinese

Ø          The notion of parallelism is more frequently and rigorously noted than Greek and Latin classics.

Ø          The examples on repetition as the basic grid of literary patterning:

Ex. 文心雕龍, Kukai (19 the Japanese), 管錐編

Ø          The types of Parallelism: 對 （to match, to correspond）

Ex. 對偶、對仗、對峙、對照、對句、對囑（alternate orthography 拼字法）

Ø          Metaphor for pairing:

Ex. 麗辭 （paired expressions）

Ø          Examples:

造化賦形支體必雙，神理為用事不孤立。

夫心生文辭運裁百慮高下，相須自然成對。

          In West

Ø          The notion of parallelism is primarily associated with the rhetoric of classical antiquity. The treatises such as Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Cicero’s De Partitione Oratoria, Quintilian’s De Institutione Oratoria used of parallel sequences with duly note, albeit never emphasizing.

Ø          The most significant verse section in the ancient civilization (Ganges): Hebrew Bible.

Ø          Excerpt

When Israel went forth out of Egypt.

The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

Judah was his sanctuary,

And Israel his dominion.

The sea saw it and fled, the Jordan was driven back,

The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs. (Psalms)

          This Pronounced tendency[1] of Hebrew poetry revived the terms Parallelism in the Eighteenth century and is frequently taken as a holdover of a more widespread mode of literary expression in the ancient Near East.

          Definition of Hebrew Parallelism by Robert Lowth:

Ø          “When they express the same thing in different words or different things in a similar form of words; when equals refers to equals, and opposites to opposites”

Ø          “When a proposition is delivered, and a second is subjoined to it, or drawn under it, equivalent, or contrasted with it, in sense, or similar to it in the form of grammatical construction; these I call Parallel Lines; and the words or phrases answering one to another in the corresponding lines Parallel Terms” 

Ø          (the Biblical scholar Robert Lowth (1710-87))

          Arguing:

Ø          ㊣ The function of Parallelism is limited to rhetorical ornamentation, compared with the usage in the Greek and Latin Classics. ㊣ The parallel construction are not simply joined together paratactically (結構併列), but to follow the pattern “subjoined” (增補) whic turns double units into unitary sentence. [such rhetorical doubling in scriptural passage are taken as signs of doubleness of meaning, hence as for redoubled exegetical (解釋的) efforts.]

          Two Types of Parallelism: “formal” (形式上) and “semantic”（與義上） parallelism

Ø          On Formal side: to isolate lines of vers (hemistichs (不完全詩行) within one line), or to sets of paired lines in couplets-à for distinct caesura or a strong sense of closure

Ø          On Semantic side: generally to fall back on fixed pairs of terms: conventional place-holders or coordinates of conception such as heaven and earth, night and day, and the like. -à Loose parallelism in Greek and Latin and many Chinese passages are this type.

          Famous Examples: 1. Biblical Style ( most visible). 2. Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and French Neo-classicists’ articles (a signposis for shift but only for ornamentation). 3. Lyly’s Euphues (euphuism綺麗體) (an Elizabethan experiment ). 4. Neo-classical parody (pretensions, not a new kind of parallel aesthetics).