✨ New essay with , illustrated by : numinous.productions/timeful/
We've previously written about a "mnemonic medium," which helps you remember what you read. Here we explore a different angle, extending a book in time to help it connect to lived experience.
Conversation
Interesting! I'm still not convinced how dismantling an antimetabole (or chiasmus) works better than the deployment thereof.
1
1
I don't think we're suggesting that texts be dismantled, so much as extended and elaborated! But maybe I don't understand your concern?
2
2
The point of figures of speech (parallelism, anaphora, chiasmus) is to aid memory. So wasn't sure how/why changing Lincoln's words helps you memorize what was memorable because of the initial construction.
1
1
Ah, the presentation is a bit unclear, given the prior discussion of memory. The proposal in that example is to manipulate Lincoln's words not to help you remember them, but rather to help you practice and reflect on the idiom of parallel construction and S+W's comments about it.
1
Right but I think you have it backwards. Nobody needs to reflect on parallelism; it's hard wired. Just use it.
1
Interesting! Certainly our reaction is hard-wired, but that doesn’t necessarily mean amateur writers think to use it when a passage is almost parallel. I imagine S&W point it out because they feel their students aren’t sensitive to it. You feel differently about your students?
1
1
I confess I never used S&W but rather the primary sources: Lincoln, and of course Douglass, the master of chiasmus. But I thought you were teaching memory, not writing.
1
Ah, nope, this piece isn’t trying to be about memory (not directly, anyway). It’s trying to be about creating "texts which continue the conversation with the reader as they slowly integrate [its] ideas into their lives.” We’re getting type-cast here!! :)
1
2
I am wholly supportive of this project.
1
3
Thanks. I think your earlier 🔥 reply was right, too: in many senses, I think we do mean poetry!