Parison in Rhetoric

Definition:

A rhetorical term for corresponding structure in a series of phrases or clauses--adjective to adjective, noun to noun, etc. Adjective: parisonic.

See Examples and Observations, below. Also see:

Etymology:
From the Greek. "evenly balanced"

Examples and Observations:

"The closer you get, the better you look."
(advertising slogan for Nice 'n' Easy Shampoo)

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Worship")
"Everything you want, nothing you don't."
(slogan for Nissan automobiles)
"The milk chocolate melts in your mouth--not in your hand."
(advertising slogan for M&Ms candy)
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
(President John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 1961)
"A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."
(slogan of the Florida Citrus Commission)
"I have lov'd, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery."
(John Donne, "Love's Alchemy")
"He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is predestined to be damned will be damned."
(James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans)
"Based as it is on identity of sound, parison is usually classified with figures of similitude and sometimes associated with methods of amplification, techniques for expanding and comparing. . . . Parison is, of course, an instrument of delight, 'causing,' in [Henry] Peacham's words, 'delectation by the vertue of proportion and number.' At the same time, however, it serves a heuristic function, enlarging and dividing a topic for purposes of analysis, comparison, and discrimination. By arranging ideas into parallel forms, whether phrases or clauses, the prose writer calls the reader's attention to an especially significant idea; at the same time, however, such an arrangement focuses the reader's mind on the semantic similarities, differences, or oppositions exposed in parallel structures. . . .

"Parison--along with its rhetorical cognates--is one of the cornerstones of early-modern English writing."
(Russ McDonald, "Compar or Parison: Measure for Measure." Renaissance Figures of Speech, ed. by Sylvia Adamson, Gavin Alexander, and Katrin Ettenhuber. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007)