Parallelism (or thought rhyme) is a rhetorical device that compounds words or phrases that have equivalent meanings so as to create a definite pattern.
[2] Parallelism as a rhetorical device is used in many languages and cultures around the world in poetry, epics, songs, written prose and speech, from the folk level to the professional.
[8] Robert Lowth coined the term parallelismus membrorum (parallelism of members, i.e. poetic lines) in his 1788 book, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrew Nation.
Conversations between learned men in many cases involved exchanging single parallel couplets as a form of playing with words, as well as a kind of mental duel.
[10][11] In a parallel couplet, not only must the content, the parts of speech, the mythological and historico-geographical allusions, be all separately matched and balanced, but most of the tones must also be paired reciprocally.