• Epigrams
• Selection

Epigrams

An epigram is a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way. An epigram can also be a "brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement." The epigram is a literary device. It has been used for over two thousand years. (Wikipedia, "Epigram").

Modern epigrams are thought of as very short amd having a "point" – that is, ending in a punchline or little twist. However, the Greek literary epigram was not always as short, and many are simply descriptive.

The European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial as its main model. He copied and adapted Greek epigram style (Lucillius and Nicarchus) selectively. Greek epigram was much more diverse than Martial's.

Among the best sources is the Greek Anthology from the 10th century CE. It is based on older collections, and contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity into the Byzantine era. That is a thousand years of these sayings "on every topic under the sun." (Ibid).

Roman epigrams owe much to Greek predecessors and contemporaries, although the much popular Roman epigrams are often more satirical and at times use obscene language.

In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb.

Occasionally, simple and witty statements may also be considered epigrams, even though they are not poetic. Some of them may tend towards paradox. Wit or sarcasm help distinguish epigrams from aphorisms and adages - (Ibid.)

Thus throughout two thousand years or so, the content, length and style of the epigram have changed, while wits and sages of many ages have tried to identify what are epigrams.

In a very long tradition from the Greeks onwards, epigrams, like bees, should have "a sting, and honey, and a small body." (Cf. Fuller 1943:v). Not necessarily: Greek epigrams might lack both sting and a small body.

On these pages an epigram may be taken to mean "a short poem leading up to and ending in a witty or ingenious turn of thought." (Fuller 1943:v) However, the epigram does not have to be a poem either.

Epigrams can be "what you want them to be" (Edmund Fuller). They overlap with such as aphoristic wisdom and other witty expressions, and may be in prose, unrhymed, and not caustic either. Still, as Edmund Fuller further states, they might be brief, they might be witty, or paradoxical, or true, but epigrams are hard to round up, hard to define well.

Moreover, epigrams have been used for insults and abuse, and the form has traditionally been inclined towards such as irreverence and deflation.

Look at one:

"God is the noblest work of man (Robert Ingersoll)".

The dictum is about mental projections. But as with other epigrams, "discretion should be applied", because "they are edge tools" (Fuller 1943:viii), and

The fate of all extreme is such:
Men may be read, as well as books, too much.

Alexander Pope

Further,

Character is much easier kept than recovered. (Thomas Paine)

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Selections

A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, "In silence." - Plutarch (Fuller 1943:35)

Valour and courage to the young and strong,
A crown of wisdom to grey hairs belong.
Be of good cheer then; to thyself be true,
Get thee a wife and get thee children too.

- Johnson (Fuller 1943:204)

Stanzas to Pale Ale

Oh! I have loved thee fondly, ever preferr'd thee to the choicest wine;
From thee my lips they could not sever by saying thou contain'dst strychnine.
Did I believe the slander? Never! I held thee still to be divine.

- Punch (in Parton 1886:56)

An optimist is a person who eats candy off an uncovered street stand. - New York Evening Mail. (Lawson 1924:48).

Since your legs, Phœbus, resemble the horns of the moon, you might bathe your feet in a cornucopia. - Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 CE), Book II, Epigram 35.