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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. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...
Look up Wit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
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. The Hellenistic period (4th - 1st c. ...
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. Elegy was originally used for a type of poetic metre (Elegiac metre), but is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. ...
Symposium originally referred to a drinking party (the Greek verb sympotein means to drink together) but has since come to refer to any academic conference, whether or not drinking takes place. ...
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. Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English as Martial, was a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) 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. ...
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Nicarchus was a Greek writer of the first century AD, best known for his epigrams, of which 42 survive, and his satirical poetry. ...
1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ...
Woodcut of Juvenal from the Nuremberg Chronicle Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, Anglicized as Juvenal, was a Roman satiric poet of the late 1st century and early 2nd century. ...
The Milan Papyrus is a papyrus scroll written in the 3rd century BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. ...
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. Greek Anthology (also Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Ancient and Byzantine periods of Greek Literature. ...
The Hellenistic period (4th - 1st c. ...
Late Antiquity is a rough periodization (c. ...
Byzantine Empire at its greatest extent c. ...
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: Graffiti (strictly, as singular, graffito, from the Italian — graffiti being the plural) are images or letters applied without permission to publicly viewable surfaces such as walls or bridges. ...
Pompeii is a ruined Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. ...
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- Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis
- qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.
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- 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. Domitius Marsus was a Latin poet, friend of Virgil and Tibullus, and contemporary of Horace. ...
Species Cicuta bulbifera Cicuta douglasii Cicuta maculata Cicuta virosa Cicuta (Water Hemlock or Cowbane) is a small genus of four species of highly poisonous flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, mainly North America. ...
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (November 3, AD 39-April 30, 65), better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, and is one of the outstanding figures of the Silver Latin period. ...
In Roman literature, the Pharsalia (also known as the Bellum civile) is an epic poem by the poet Lucan. ...
Fresco from Herculaneum, presumably showing a love couple. ...
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- Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
- Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
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- 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): Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English as Martial, was a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) 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. ...
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- 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.
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- 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). A couplet is a pair of lines of verse. ...
William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery), in the famous Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. ...
In poetics, Closed couplets are two line units of verse that do not extend their sense beyond the lines end. ...
William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, visionary, painter, and printmaker. ...
The poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron is often referred to simply as Byron. ...
John Gay John Gay (30 June 1685 - 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
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. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist. ...
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. Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) was an American poet. ...
In poetry, a cinquain or quintain is a five line stanza, varied in rhyme and line, usually with the rhyme scheme ababb. ...
Scottish poet, born 1898. ...
Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) was an American poet. ...
Poetic epigrams -
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- What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;
- Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
- — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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- Little strokes
- Fell great oaks.
- — Benjamin Franklin
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- Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
- Now she's at rest — and so am I.
- — John Dryden
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- I am His Highness' dog at Kew;
- Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
- — Alexander Pope
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- I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
- But Money gives me pleasure all the time.
- — Hilaire Belloc
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- 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. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834) (pronounced ) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. ...
Benjamin Franklin (January 17 [O.S. January 6] 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the most well known Founding Fathers of the United States. ...
John Dryden John Dryden (August 19 {August 9 O.S.}, 1631 - May 12 {May 1 O.S.}, 1700) 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...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Photograph of Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. ...
Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek: Îίκος Καζαντζάκης) (February 18, 1883, Heraklion, Crete, Greece - October 26, 1957, Freiburg, Germany), author of poems, novels, essays, plays, and travel books, was arguably the most important and most translated Greek writer and philosopher of the 20th century. ...
A Poetic Epigram is a couplet verse form. ...
Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) was an American poet. ...
A couplet is a pair of lines of verse. ...
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. Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. ...
Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles. ...
Macdonald Carey (born Edward Macdonald Carey, March 15, 1913 – March 21, 1994) was an American actor best known for his role as the patriarch Dr. Tom Horton on NBCs soap opera Days of our Lives. ...
Another good example of a possible epigram,"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
The term is sometimes used for particularly pointed or much-quoted quotations taken from longer works. For the Wikipedia quotation templates, see Category:Quotation templates. ...
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. There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...
The University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. ...
This article is about the English city. ...
For other uses, see News (disambiguation). ...
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