Rhetorical Figures in Music

Abstract

This paper looks at rhetorical figures in music, focusing on figures within the chiastic suite. It argues for a cognitive provenance of these figures, accounting for their appearance in both literature and music. It looks at examples of chiasmus found in instrumental music from across the world and throughout history and suggests the proliferation of these examples has implications for our understanding of the relationship between language and music and may shed light on the neural processes involved in producing both.