Originally, an inscription on a statue; hence, any short, pithy poem. The Latin poet Martial wrote over a thousand. Coleridge's definition is also an example: What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole,/Its body brevity, and wit its soul. Some other famous epigrammatists have been Lord Chesterfield, Byron, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and Ogden Nash.
For the programming language, see Epigram (programming language).An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement.
Ancient Greek
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..."). 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); 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 its 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. We associate epigram with 'point' because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial as its principal model;
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey.
Poetic epigrams
What is an Epigram?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.
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."
Contemporary Non-Poetic Epigrams: Inspired by the end of the 20th Century, "Epigrams" by renegade poet Christian Ortega 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.htmlOther Definitions
Epigram is the independent student newspaper of the University of Bristol.
The Epigram programming language is a functional programming language with dependent types designed for developing programs which include a proof of the code's correctness alongside the code.
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