antithesis

antithesis (ăntith'isis) [key], a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves to emphasize opposition of ideas. The familiar phrase “Man proposes, God disposes” is an example of antithesis, as is John Dryden's description in “The Hind and the Panther”: “Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell.”

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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