Epigram
Encyclopedia
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia.
, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams.
Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between "epigram" and "elegy
" is sometimes indistinct (they share a characteristic metre, elegiac couplets); all the same, the origin of the genre in inscription exerted a residual pressure to keep things concise. Many of the characteristic types of literary epigram look back to inscriptional contexts, particularly funerary epigram, which in the Hellenistic era becomes a literary exercise. Other types look instead to the new performative context which epigram acquired at this time, even as it made the move from stone to papyrus: the Greek symposium
. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic and funerary elements they tell their readers (or listeners) to drink and live for today because life is short.
Epigrams are also thought of as having a "point" that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist. By no means do all Greek epigrams behave this way; many are simply descriptive. Epigram is associated with 'point' because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial
as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius
and Nicarchus
) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of 'satura', hexameter satire
, as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal
. Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as the Milan Papyrus
now indicates.
A major source for Greek literary epigram is the Greek Anthology
, a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections. It contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period
through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity
into the compiler's own Byzantine
era a thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. The Anthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous epigrams called the Μουσα Παιδικη (Mousa Paidike, "The Boyish Muse").
, such as this one from Pompeii
, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content, of course, makes it clear how popular such poems were:
However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus
, whose collection Cicuta (now lost) was named after the poisonous plant Cicuta
for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic Pharsalia
. Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus
, who wrote both invectives and love epigrams – his poem 85 is one of the latter.
The master of the Latin epigram, however, is Martial
. His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77):
Another example of an epigram by Martial:
Poets known for their epigrams whose work has been lost include Cornificia
.
Since 1600, two successive lines of verse that rhyme with each other, known as a couplet
featured as a part of the longer sonnet form, most notably in William Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 76
is an excellent example. The two line poetic form as a closed couplet
was also used by William Blake
in his poem Auguries of Innocence
and also by Byron (Don Juan (Byron)
XIII); John Gay
(Fables); Alexander Pope
(An Essay on Man).
In Victorian times the epigram couplet was often used by the prolific American poet Emily Dickinson
. Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelist George Eliot
also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled Brother and Sister, in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnet ends with a couplet. In her sonnets, the preceding lead-in-line, to the couplet ending of each, could be thought of as a title for the couplet, as is shown in Sonnet VIII of the sequence.
During the early 20th century, the rhymed epigram couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line. Adelaide Crapsey
codified the couplet form into a two line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees, first published in 1915.
By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain
verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar
. These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey
.
In the last decade of the 20th century the American poet Denis Garrison developed a two-line 17 syllable variation of the image couplet with his Crystalline, where euphony is the key component and a title thereto optional. An early example of this euphony, in a couplet form can be found in Edmund Spenser
's Anacreontic No 1.
's witticisms such as "I can resist everything except temptation" are considered epigrams.
e.g. : art lies in concealing art.
This shows the epigram's tendency towards paradox
. Dorothy Parker
's witty one-liners can be considered epigrams. Also, Macdonald Carey
's legendary line "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" can be considered an epigram, as the meaning of life is concisely explained in a simile.
The term is sometimes used for particularly pointed or much-quoted quotations taken from longer works.
:Category:Epigrammatists
Ancient Greek
The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuaries including statues of athletes and on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic periodHellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams.
Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between "epigram" and "elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
" is sometimes indistinct (they share a characteristic metre, elegiac couplets); all the same, the origin of the genre in inscription exerted a residual pressure to keep things concise. Many of the characteristic types of literary epigram look back to inscriptional contexts, particularly funerary epigram, which in the Hellenistic era becomes a literary exercise. Other types look instead to the new performative context which epigram acquired at this time, even as it made the move from stone to papyrus: the Greek symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic and funerary elements they tell their readers (or listeners) to drink and live for today because life is short.
Epigrams are also thought of as having a "point" that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist. By no means do all Greek epigrams behave this way; many are simply descriptive. Epigram is associated with 'point' because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius
Lucillius
Lucillius was the author of one hundred twenty three epigrams in Greek preserved in the Greek Anthology. He lived under the emperor Nero. Many of his poems describe stereotyped people, such as doctors or thin people; as such his works are in the tradition of the Characters of Theophrastus. He...
and Nicarchus
Nicarchus
Nicarchus or Nicarch was a Greek poet and writer of the 1st century AD, best known for his epigrams, of which forty-two survive under his name in the Greek Anthology, and his satirical poetry. He was a contemporary of, and influence on, the better-known Latin writer Martial. A large proportion of...
) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of 'satura', hexameter satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal
Juvenal
The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...
. Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as the Milan Papyrus
Milan Papyrus
The Milan Papyrus is a papyrus roll inscribed in Alexandria in the late 3rd or early 2nd century BC during the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Originally discovered by anonymous tomb raiders as part of a mummy wrapping, it was purchased in the papyrus "grey market" in Europe in 1992 by the...
now indicates.
A major source for Greek literary epigram is the Greek Anthology
Greek Anthology
The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature...
, a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections. It contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
into the compiler's own Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
era a thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. The Anthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous epigrams called the Μουσα Παιδικη (Mousa Paidike, "The Boyish Muse").
Ancient Roman
Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were often more satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffitiGraffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
, such as this one from Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content, of course, makes it clear how popular such poems were:
- Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis
- qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.
- I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins,
- since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets.
However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus
Domitius Marsus
Domitius Marsus was a Latin poet, friend of Virgil and Tibullus, and contemporary of Horace.He survived Tibullus , but was no longer alive when Ovid wrote the epistle from Pontus containing a list of poets...
, whose collection Cicuta (now lost) was named after the poisonous plant Cicuta
Cicuta
Cicuta, commonly known as water hemlock, is a small genus of four species of highly poisonous plants in the family Apiaceae. They are perennial herbaceous plants which grow up to tall, having distinctive small green or white flowers arranged in an umbrella shape . Plants in this genus may also be...
for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic Pharsalia
Pharsalia
The Pharsalia is a Roman epic poem by the poet Lucan, telling of the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great...
. Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
, who wrote both invectives and love epigrams – his poem 85 is one of the latter.
- Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
- Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
- I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do this.
- I know not, but I feel that it is happening, and am tormented greatly.
The master of the Latin epigram, however, is Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
. His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77):
- Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis
- saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus.
- Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis,
- sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis.
- Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned Pedo
- often stretches out over a doublesided page.
- A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it,
- but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long.
Another example of an epigram by Martial:
- Mentula tam magna est quantus tibi, Papyle, nasus,
- ut possis, quotiens arrigis, olfacere.
- Your penis is as large as your nose, Papylus,
- so you can smell it when it's erect.
Poets known for their epigrams whose work has been lost include Cornificia
Cornificia
Cornificia was a Roman poet and writer of epigrams of the 1st century BC.-Life:Cornificia belongs to the last generation of the Roman Republic....
.
English
In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb, especially in the translations of the Bible and the Greek and Roman poets.Since 1600, two successive lines of verse that rhyme with each other, known as a couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
featured as a part of the longer sonnet form, most notably in William Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 76
Sonnet 76
Sonnet 76 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.-Synopsis:...
is an excellent example. The two line poetic form as a closed couplet
Closed couplet
In poetics, closed couplets are two line units of verse that do not extend their sense beyond the line's end. Furthermore, the lines are usually rhymed. When the lines are in iambic pentameter, they are referred to as heroic verse. However, Samuel Butler also used closed couplets in his iambic...
was also used by William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
in his poem Auguries of Innocence
Auguries of Innocence
Auguries of Innocence is a poem from one of William Blake's notebooks now known as The Pickering Manuscript. It is assumed to have been written in 1803, but was not published until 1863 in the companion volume to Alexander Gilchrist's biography of William Blake. The poem contains a series of...
and also by Byron (Don Juan (Byron)
Don Juan (Byron)
Don Juan is a satiric poem by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womanizer but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire"...
XIII); John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
(Fables); Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
(An Essay on Man).
In Victorian times the epigram couplet was often used by the prolific American poet Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
. Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelist George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled Brother and Sister, in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnet ends with a couplet. In her sonnets, the preceding lead-in-line, to the couplet ending of each, could be thought of as a title for the couplet, as is shown in Sonnet VIII of the sequence.
During the early 20th century, the rhymed epigram couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line. Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T...
codified the couplet form into a two line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees, first published in 1915.
By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain
Cinquain
Cinquain is a class of poetic forms that employ a 5-line pattern. Earlier used to describe any five-line form, it now refers to one of several forms that are defined by specific rules and guidelines.-Crapsey cinquain:...
verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar
William Soutar
William Soutar was a Scottish poet, born 1898. He served in the navy in World War I, and afterwards studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he encountered the work of Hugh MacDiarmid. This led to a radical alteration in his work, and he became a leading poet of the Scottish Literary...
. These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T...
.
In the last decade of the 20th century the American poet Denis Garrison developed a two-line 17 syllable variation of the image couplet with his Crystalline, where euphony is the key component and a title thereto optional. An early example of this euphony, in a couplet form can be found in Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
's Anacreontic No 1.
Poetic epigrams
- What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;
- Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
- — Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
- Some can gaze and not be sick
- But I could never learn the trick.
- There's this to say for blood and breath;
- They give a man a taste for death.
- — A. E. HousmanA. E. HousmanAlfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...
- Little strokes
- Fell great oaks.
- — Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
- Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
- Now she's at rest and so am I.
- — John DrydenJohn DrydenJohn Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
- I am His Highness' dog at KewKew PalaceKew Palace is a British Royal Palace in Kew Gardens on the banks of the Thames up river from London. There have been at least four Palaces at Kew, and three have been known as Kew Palace; the first building may not have been known as Kew as no records survive other than the words of another...
; - Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
- — Alexander PopeAlexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
- I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
- But Money gives me pleasure all the time.
- — Hilaire BellocHilaire BellocJoseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
- I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
- — Nikos KazantzakisNikos KazantzakisNikos Kazantzakis was a Greek writer and philosopher, celebrated for his novel Zorba the Greek, considered his magnum opus...
- To define the beautiful is to misunderstand it.
- — Charles Robert Anon (Fernando PessoaFernando PessoaFernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
)
- To be safe on the Fourth,
- Don't buy a fifth on the third.
- — James H Muehlbauer
- This Humanist whom no belief constrained
- Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.
- — J.V. Cunningham
- All things pass
- Love and mankind is grass.
- — Stevie SmithStevie SmithFlorence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith was an English poet and novelist.-Life:Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. Contemporary Women Poets...
Non-poetic epigrams
Occasionally, simple and witty statements, though not poetic per se, may also be considered epigrams. Oscar WildeOscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's witticisms such as "I can resist everything except temptation" are considered epigrams.
e.g. : art lies in concealing art.
This shows the epigram's tendency towards paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
. Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
's witty one-liners can be considered epigrams. Also, Macdonald Carey
Macdonald Carey
Edward Macdonald Carey was an American actor, best known for his role as the patriarch Dr. Tom Horton on NBC's soap opera Days of our Lives...
's legendary line "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" can be considered an epigram, as the meaning of life is concisely explained in a simile.
The term is sometimes used for particularly pointed or much-quoted quotations taken from longer works.
See also
- AphorismAphorismAn aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
:Category:Epigrammatists
- Epigraph (archeology)
- Epigraph (literature)Epigraph (literature)In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional...
- EpitaphEpitaphAn epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
- Wikisource: Epigram
Epigrammatists
- John Donne
- Ashleigh BrilliantAshleigh BrilliantAshleigh Ellwood Brilliant is an author and syndicated cartoonist living in Santa Barbara, California, USA. He is best known for his Pot-Shots, single-panel illustrations with one-line humorous remarks, which began syndication in the United States of America in 1975...