Book Ends/Oral Tradition
Note that some Book Ends can be spoilers, so beware.
Examples of Book Ends in Oral Tradition include:
- Older Than Dirt: The Epic of Gilgamesh starts with a narration that extols the might of the walls of Uruk, which seem to be meant to emphasize the glory of their builder, the king Gilgamesh. Until, of course, Gilgamesh fails to gain eternal life, and in the final line of the epic, he speaks the same passage to his new traveling companion Urshanabi. (Scholarly opinion is divided whether this is intended as Ironic Echo, or an affirmation that true immortality is found in lasting greatness of a man's works.)
- The
Hebraicmultilingual poetic device called a chiasmus is this trope defined.
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