Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition »

The late Mary Douglas was professor of social anthropology at University College London. After her retirement she was an honorary research fellow there.

Many famous antique texts are misunderstood and many others have been completely dismissed, all because the literary style in which they were written is unfamiliar today. So argues Mary Douglas in this controversial study of ring composition, a technique which places the meaning of a text in the middle, framed by a beginning and ending in parallel. To read a ring composition in the modern linear fashion is to misinterpret it, Douglas contends, and today’s scholars must reevaluate important antique texts from around the world.

Found in the Bible and in writings from as far afield as Egypt, China, Indonesia, Greece, and Russia, ring composition is too widespread to have come from a single source. Does it perhaps derive from the way the brain works? What is its function in social contexts? The author examines ring composition, its principles and functions, in a cross-cultural way. She focuses on ring composition in Homer’s Iliad, the Bible’s book of Numbers, and, for a challenging modern example, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, developing a persuasive argument for reconstruing famous books and rereading neglected ones.

New York Times

"Over the course of her career Ms. Douglas has become a master at discerning order in unexpected forms and surprising places. In an unassuming way, without pretense or revolutionary claims, she reveals the logic behind the varied customs of a society."—Edward Rothstein, New York Times

— Edward Rothstein

Preface     ix
Ancient Rings Worldwide     1
Modes and Genres     17
How to Construct and Recognize a Ring     31
Alternating Bands: Numbers     43
The Central Place: Numbers     58
Modern, Not-Quite Rings     72
Tristram Shandy: Testing for Ring Shape     85
Two Central Places, Two Rings: The Iliad     101
Alternating Nights and Days: The Iliad     115
The Ending: How to Complete a Ring     125
The Latch: Jakobson's Conundrum     139
Notes     149
Index     161