The hysteron proteron (from the Greek: ὕστερον πρότερον, hýsteron próteron, "latter before") is a rhetorical device in which the first key word of the idea refers to something that happens temporally later than the second key word. The goal is to call attention to the more important idea by placing it first.
The standard example comes from the Aeneid of Virgil: "Moriamur, et in media arma ruamus" ("Let us die, and charge into the thick of the fight"; ii. 353).
An example of hysteron proteron encountered in everyday life is that of a person getting up and putting on their "shoes and socks", rather than socks and shoes.
On a larger scale, the structure of Homer's Odyssey also takes advantage of hysteron proteron strategies. The epic begins by narrating Telemachus's difficulties dealing with his mother's suitors and his search for information about his long absent father, events that, temporally, occur nearly at the end of the overall sequence. When the poem introduces Odysseus, it does so after he has spent seven years in captivity on Calypso's island and is finally leaving; he builds a raft but is shipwrecked. He relates to his hosts, the Phaeacians, the adventures that brought him to this point, bringing the story up to his stay on Calypso's island. The Phaeacians help him finish his voyage, and he returns to Ithaca where he meets up with Telemachus and, together, the two deal with the suitors, who were the poem's first main concern.
In this way, the Odyssey's use of hysteron proteron shares elements with frame narratives, which remain a popular device today in movies and fiction.
In addition to being a rhetorical device, the hysteron proteron can be used to describe a situation that is the reverse of the natural or logical order. "Putting the cart before the horse" and "topsy-turvydom" are synonyms of hysteron proteron.[1]
The author J. K. Stanford named one of his principal characters George Hysteron-Proteron.
In addition to the traditional use, hysteron proteron is often cited modernly as the usage of a succinct sentence in poetry as a transition between two interposed points and to emphasize the relationship between them or as one line equivocal of two structurally larger paragraphs. This is oft used by the revered poet Matthew Arnold; the seminal example of this is the transitional line between stanzas 1 and 4 in the episcopalian "To Marguerite—Continued," Arnold's ruminative, metaphysical commentary on mental isolation; "Across the sounds and channels pour --... But but how long we walk without the moon, one of speckling and sparkling sheen... Oh! then a longing like despair".