BUT, since I put the energy into that material at one point, and to maybe provide more of some of my ideas on chiasm at one portal, I've collected here the titles and links to all the articles I did touching on the chiastic structuring in the 7 books (the only thing I might not have included is an idea I had for a Cho chiasm in 3-4-5, and, well, I just said about as much about that as is really necessary once you get the basics of chiastic reading):
So here are two things, the two sections of this post, thing one and thing two:
1. What is a chiasm and what's it got to do with Harry Potter?
Chiasm is a structure for a text, a structure in which there are matching or connected sections at the beginning and end, usually labeled by theorists (this type of structure is a theory somebody applies, not labeled in original texts) by a letter for the first element of a pair and the same letter with a "prime" (1) behind it for the second element: so, A=Sorcerer's Stone and A1=Deathly Hallows. This theory also posits a central element in the progression that is important for interpreting the correspondences, an interpretive crux ("chiasm" takes its name from the Greek letter "chi," which is the "X" letter, and so the movement of any text, on a chiastic reading, goes in to the center [letters] and then back out [letter primes]). While it is thematic interpretation that is the goal, authors load works with little signposts that clue you in to use this structure theory to interpret, little details like "eat slugs" in book 2 and Slughorn in book 6 or the first horcrux introduced in book 2 and you find out what horcurxes are in book 6, although often even these little signposts tie into theme directly, like Hagrid bringing Harry to Hogwarts/the WW in book 1 and bringing his body to the castle in book 7. So, the best way to describe is to actually show the diagram:
A=Stone
.....B=Chamber
..........C=Prisoner
...............D=Goblet (Interpretive Crux)
..........C1=Order
.....B1=Prince
A1=Hallows
Example:
I'll give only one example here because I'm not actually sure if I included it in the posts in body text or in comments. Many noted after book 6 how heavily the first ever potions lesson (from book 1) was mentioned in book 6, and they cleverly deduced from the "put a stopper in death" line in that lesson in Sorcerer's Stone that, in book 6, Snape either was or would be stoppering death for DD. But I claim that there is also a deeper role of that first potions lesson for chiastic structuring revealing heavy theme because the full quote is "bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death," which I tie chiasticly to the even books, 2-4-6. 2=bottle fame (pretty much what Lockhart does); 4=brew glory (as DD says, the goal of the tournament is "eternal glory," and Harry notes that Cedric was turning away from the kind of glory Hufflpuff had not seen in ages), and 6=stoppering death (Snape trapping the curse in one hand for a year). The central one thematically is glory, as is shown in book 7 in the chapter in King's Cross Station, where DD talks about his and Grindlewald's seeking the Hallows for glory when they would triumphantly lead the WW out of hiding, and you can say that Voldy's flight from death is centered around glory too. One could even say that the whole series is about the tension between glory and love.
There is plenty of literature on chiasm in the ancient works, like John Welch's Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structure, Analyses, Exegesis, but if one wants more for here, one will have to go to the links (the two in the first paragraph below are the central expositions, but they are given again in the list as well).
2. The Issue of Web Links:
The post that John has used the link for before as the main post is a piece called "'X' Marks the Spot: The Goblet of Fire and Chiasm," which was from Jan 30, 2006, but the more thorough explanation and defense is "Merlin's Manifesto:Further Support of Chiasm in the Harry Potter series" from June 7, 2007 (seriously ... it's effing mammoth).
Here is the whole list of posts (in chronological order) that I could find dealing with chiastic structuring and its connection with theme in the Harry Potter series (apologies for meanderings in some of them):
Posts
1. "The Dust of the Ground: 4 Elements in 3 Tasks" 1/30/2006
2. "'X' Marks the Spot: The Goblet of Fire and Chiasm"1/30/2006
3. "Riddles Part 4: TheSpider " 1/31/2006
"Riddles" Parts 1-3 linked at beginning
Riddles Part 1: Riddles in Dark Chambers
RiddlesPart 2: Riddles and Imagination
Riddles Part 3: a History of Riddles
4. "Blast Ended Slugs in Books 2 and 6" 2/9/2016
5. "Remembering the X" 2/14/2006
7. "Chiasm and Love: Playing to Potter's Strengths" 8/7/2006
8. "Sunkatabasis: The Vertical Dimension of Love in Goblet of Fire" 8/11/2006
8. "Merlin's Manifesto:Further Support of Chiasm in the Harry Potter series" 6/7/2007
10. "The 3-4-5 InsanityChiasm in the Harry Potter Series" 6/14/2007
11. "Griffyndor vs Slytherin: Bookends in books 1 and7" 8/17/2009
Finally, on 12/01/2016, in this blog, I completed another post on an idea of a layered dual-chiasm structure in the series called Flesh, Blood, Bone ... and Heart.
