Robert Hayman's 1628 bookQuodlibets devotes much of its text to epigrams.
Anepigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising orsatirical statement. The word derives from theGreekἐπίγραμμα (epígramma, "inscription", fromἐπιγράφειν [epigráphein], "to write on, to inscribe").[1] Thisliterary device has been practiced for over two millennia.
The presence ofwit orsarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams fromaphorisms andadages, which typically do not show those qualities.
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 characteristicmetre,elegiac couplets). In theclassical period, the clear distinction between them was that epigrams were inscribed and meant to be read, while elegies were recited and meant to be heard. Some elegies could be quite short, but only public epigrams were longer than ten lines. All the same, the origin of epigram in inscription exerted a residual pressure to keep thingsconcise, even when they were recited in Hellenistic times. 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. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic and funerary elements – they tell their readers (or listeners) to drink and live for today because life is short. Generally, any theme found in classical elegies could be and were adapted for later literary epigrams.
Hellenistic 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, butMeleager of Gadara andPhilippus of Thessalonica, the first comprehensive anthologists, preferred the short and witty epigram. Since their collections helped form knowledge of the genre in Rome and then later throughout Europe, Epigram came to be associated with 'point', especially because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poetMartial as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poetsLucillius andNicarchus) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of "satura", hexametersatire, as practised by (among others) his contemporaryJuvenal. Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as theMilan Papyrus now indicates.
A major source for Greek literary epigram is theGreek Anthology, a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections, including those of Meleager and Philippus. It contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period through theImperial period andLate Antiquity into the compiler's ownByzantine era – a thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. TheAnthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book oferotic and amoroushomosexual epigrams called theΜοῦσα Παιδικἠ (Mousa Paidike, "The Boyish Muse").
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 orgraffiti, such as this one fromPompeii, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content 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, includingDomitius Marsus, whose collectionCicuta (now lost) was named after the poisonous plantCicuta for its biting wit, andLucan, more famous for his epicPharsalia. Authors whose epigrams survive includeCatullus, 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. Maybe you'd like to know why I do? I don't know, but I feel it happening, and I am tormented.
Martial, however, is considered to be the master of the Latin epigram.[3][4][5] His technique relied 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.
Poets known for their epigrams whose work has been lost includeCornificia.
The first work of English literature penned inNorth America wasRobert Hayman'sQuodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland, which is a collection of over 300 epigrams, many of which do not conform to the two-line rule or trend. While the collection was written between 1618–1628 in what is now Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, it was published shortly after his return to Britain.[6]
InVictorian times, the epigram couplet was often used by the prolific American poetEmily Dickinson. Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelistGeorge Eliot also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled "Brother and Sister"[7] in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnets 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 afixed 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 poemOn Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees,[8] first published in 1915.
By the 1930s, the five-linecinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of theScottish poetWilliam Soutar. These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey.
J. V. Cunningham was also a noted writer of epigrams (a medium suited to a "short-breathed" person).[9]
Three Poets, in three distant Ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The First in loftiness of thought surpassed; The Next in Majesty; in both the Last. The force of Nature could no farther go: To make a third she joined the former two.
^Hayman, Robert; Reynolds, David (February 2013).Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland. Newfoundland, Canada: Problematic Press. pp. 5–6.ISBN9780986902727.
Bruss, Jon (2010). "Epigram". In James J., Clauss; Cuypers, Martine (eds.).A Companion to Hellenistic Literature. Chichester, UK: Blackwell. pp. 117–135.
Day, Joseph (1989). "Rituals in stone: Early Greek grave epigrams and monuments".Journal of Hellenic Studies.109:22–27.
Gow, A.S.F (1958).The Greek Anthology: Sources and Ascriptions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nisbet, Gideon (2003).Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial’s forgotten rivals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Nixon, Paul (1963).Martial and the Modern Epigram. New York, NY: Cooper Square.
Petrain, David (2012). "The archaeology of the epigrams from thetabulae Iliacae: Adaptation, allusion, alteration".Mnemosyne.65 (4–5):597–635.
Rimell, Victoria (2008).Martial’s Rome: Empire and the ideology of epigram. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rosen, Ralph (2007). "The hellenistic epigrams on Archilochus and Hipponax". In Bing, Peter; Bruss, Jon (eds.).Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram: Down to Philip. Brill's Companions in Classical Studies. Leiden, NL: Brill. pp. 459–476.
Sullivan, John P. (1990). "Martial and English Poetry".Classical Antiquity.9:149–174.
Tarán, Sonya Lida (1979).The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden, NL: Brill.
