“It was only half a century ago that the Dutch scholar W. Otterlo produced the first systematic analysis of ring composition. He noted that ring composition has passed unnoticed over the centuries until our time. His book was focused on Homeric studies, to which I have occasion to return in Chapter 8. He counts ring composition as a late archaic style that finishes around the middle of the fifth century bce. This view is endorsed by G. B. Gray, who thought that it had been ousted by metric forms. Ring composition did become obsolete... The other prime test of a well-turned ring is the loading of meaning on the center and the connections made between the center and the beginning; in other words, the center of a polished ring integrates the whole... Part of the strategy of construction is to divide the whole piece into two parallel halves that will be chiastically related. The pattern is ABC for the first sequence and CBA for the second. Reversing the order is the technique for bringing the ending back to the beginning... For example, the prologue of the book of Numbers shows the people of Israel preparing to set out for the Promised Land. As we will see in the next chapters, it anticipates fighting and promises land at the end. By the end of Numbers many subplots have opened, developed, and ended. At the very end, the people of Israel have reached the Jordan and partitioned the land among themselves, tribe by tribe. At this point Moses reports that God has said (three times): ‘each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall cleave to its own inheritance’ (36.7-10). This ending is an opening on the new life, which is to be described in Joshua and Chronicles. Likewise, the ending of the Iliad is conciliatory, as we shall see in due course. The ring structure itself may suggest a cosmology of eternal return, or it could suggest ending and renewal. We can but look to observe whether the concluding mood is hopeful or grim. The point is that the rhetorical form does not impose any particular mood for the ending. The general impression is that the ring is a literary form that is good for reflecting on, and for establishing a long view... One of the special literary merits of a ring is to anticipate its own form of closure from the beginning... The longer ring forms tend to embellish the mid-turn with an elaborate commentary. A well-marked turning point is a sign of a well-designed ring composition. Sometimes it takes the form of a minor ring. Sometimes it is so long as to mislead the reader about its place in a larger structure... Part of the strategy of construction is to divide the whole piece into two parallel halves that will be chiastically related. The pattern is ABC for the first sequence and CBA for the second. Reversing the order is the technique for bringing the ending back to the beginning. The second part can be said to have turned around, or crossed over. The mid-turn is written so that it makes correspondences with the prologue and with the ending. When the whole poem or book is gathered together in the middle, and referred to again at the end, the result is a well-integrated composition... To summarize, the first indication of a ring composition is that the end corresponds to the beginning.”
And then you need to add this bit that you added elsewhere: “Don’t mistake ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ for ‘I am the Alpha and then the Omega, the first and then the last, the beginning and then the end.’ There is a total difference of reality!”
“It was only half a century ago that the Dutch scholar W. Otterlo produced the first systematic analysis of ring composition. He noted that ring composition has passed unnoticed over the centuries until our time. His book was focused on Homeric studies, to which I have occasion to return in Chapter 8. He counts ring composition as a late archaic style that finishes around the middle of the fifth century bce. This view is endorsed by G. B. Gray, who thought that it had been ousted by metric forms. Ring composition did become obsolete... The other prime test of a well-turned ring is the loading of meaning on the center and the connections made between the center and the beginning; in other words, the center of a polished ring integrates the whole... Part of the strategy of construction is to divide the whole piece into two parallel halves that will be chiastically related. The pattern is ABC for the first sequence and CBA for the second. Reversing the order is the technique for bringing the ending back to the beginning... For example, the prologue of the book of Numbers shows the people of Israel preparing to set out for the Promised Land. As we will see in the next chapters, it anticipates fighting and promises land at the end. By the end of Numbers many subplots have opened, developed, and ended. At the very end, the people of Israel have reached the Jordan and partitioned the land among themselves, tribe by tribe. At this point Moses reports that God has said (three times): ‘each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall cleave to its own inheritance’ (36.7-10). This ending is an opening on the new life, which is to be described in Joshua and Chronicles. Likewise, the ending of the Iliad is conciliatory, as we shall see in due course. The ring structure itself may suggest a cosmology of eternal return, or it could suggest ending and renewal. We can but look to observe whether the concluding mood is hopeful or grim. The point is that the rhetorical form does not impose any particular mood for the ending. The general impression is that the ring is a literary form that is good for reflecting on, and for establishing a long view... One of the special literary merits of a ring is to anticipate its own form of closure from the beginning... The longer ring forms tend to embellish the mid-turn with an elaborate commentary. A well-marked turning point is a sign of a well-designed ring composition. Sometimes it takes the form of a minor ring. Sometimes it is so long as to mislead the reader about its place in a larger structure... Part of the strategy of construction is to divide the whole piece into two parallel halves that will be chiastically related. The pattern is ABC for the first sequence and CBA for the second. Reversing the order is the technique for bringing the ending back to the beginning. The second part can be said to have turned around, or crossed over. The mid-turn is written so that it makes correspondences with the prologue and with the ending. When the whole poem or book is gathered together in the middle, and referred to again at the end, the result is a well-integrated composition... To summarize, the first indication of a ring composition is that the end corresponds to the beginning.”
And then you need to add this bit that you added elsewhere: “Don’t mistake ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ for ‘I am the Alpha and then the Omega, the first and then the last, the beginning and then the end.’ There is a total difference of reality!”