epigram

 

a short, polished, pithy saying, usually in verse, often with a satiric or paradoxical twist at the end. The term was originally applied by the Greeks to the inscriptions on stones. The epigrams of the Latin poet Martial established the form for many later writers. In England the epigram flourished in the work of innumerable poets including Donne, Herrick, Ben Jonson, Pope, Byron, Coleridge, and Walter Savage Landor. Great German epigrammatists include Logau, Lessing, and Herder. In 18th-century France, Boileau-Despréaux, Lebrun, and Voltaire excelled in the form. Poets of the 20th cent. who are noted for their epigrams include Yeats, Pound, Roy Campbell, and Ogden Nash. One of the most brilliant of prose epigrammatists was Oscar Wilde. His works are studded with epigrams, such as “I can resist everything except temptation.”

An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. They are among the best examples of the power of poetry to compress insight and wit.

Epigram is in origin a Greek word, 'epi-gramma' - "written upon" - and the Western tradition of epigram ultimately looks back to Greek literary models. As the name indicates, though, epigram began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuaries - including statues of athletes - and on funerary monuments ("Go tell it to the Spartans, passer-by..."). 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 period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigram.

We think of epigram as necessarily 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.

We also think of epigram 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. We associate epigram 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.

Our main 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.

Ancient Roman

Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were more often satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffiti, 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:

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, 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.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.

Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Perhaps you're asking why I do this?

I don't know, but I feel it happening, and it's torture.

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):

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.

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 featured as a part of the longer sonnet form, most notably in William Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet number 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 later by Byron (Don Juan 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 shown within her sequenced sonnet poem entitled BROTHER AND SISTER 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, and as is exampled in Sonnet VIII of the sequence.

In the early 20th century the rhymed epigram Couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line, when Adelaide Crapsey codified the Couplet form into a two line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem first published, 1915 in Rochester NY by The Manas Press. ON SEEING WEATHER-BEATEN TREES. By the 1930's this five line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar. 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 [1], where euphony is the key component and a title thereto optional.

Poetic epigrams

What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;

Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Little strokes

Fell great oaks.

— Benjamin Franklin

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!

Now she's at rest — and so am I.

— John Dryden

I am His Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

— Alexander Pope

I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.

But Money gives me pleasure all the time.

— Hilaire Belloc

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

— Nikos Kazantzakis

In the early part of the 20th century a short image form of the Poetic epigrams was created by Adelaide Crapsey whereby she codified this Couplet form into a two line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with an integral title as exampled by her image poem published in 1915 ..'ON SEEING WEATHER-BEATEN TREES'.In more recent times the American poet Denis Garrison developed a two line 17 syllable variation of the couplet which he labelled the crystalline. The key component of the latter is euphony.

Non-poetic epigrams

Occasionally, simple and witty statements, though not poetical per se, may also be considered epigrams, such as one attributed to Oscar Wilde: "I can resist everything except temptation." 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.

• Contemporary Non-Poetic Epigrams: Inspired by the end of the 20th Century, "Epigrams" by renegade poet Christian Ortega, who wrote "Love is a mistake between fools.", was published in a signed limited edition in the year 2000. The book is now on the web and viewable for free by accessing http://www.christianortega.com and by going directly to http://www.iknowwhatyoudidinthe80s.com/IKWYDIT8epigrams.html

Other definitions

Epigram is the independent student newspaper of the University of Bristol. It is published every two weeks during term time, and covers Bristol student news and sport. It has an all-new features section, E2, and also contains an arts supplement. It has a circulation of around six thousand.

See also

• Aphorism
• Ashleigh Brilliant
• Epigraph (archeology)
• Epigraph (literature)
• Epitaph

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