A juxtaposition: two things placed next to each other.
I -love- weird, ironic, or amusing juxtapositions.
Or juxtapositions that are beautiful through complementing or contrasting each-other… like two writers from different centuries who come to the same conclusion—but with language or stories that differ wildly… or like two images that seem to do nothing but contrast with each-other until you stare at them for a time.
“If their [the medievals’] culture is regarded as a response to environment, then the elements in that environment to which it responded most vigorously were manuscripts.”
—C.S. Lewis, “The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature”
"Unlike professors’ children, those children from the countryside did not grow up seeing books and characters everywhere. That was not their daily fare. Professors’ children did not inherit some special ability to learn characters well, but they obviously grew up in an environment that made learning characters easier."
—Fei Xiaotong, “From the Soil: the Foundations of Chinese Society”