Inliterature, anepigraph is a phrase,quotation, orpoem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section or chapter thereof.[1] The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon,[2] with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context.[3]
A book may have an overall epigraph that is part of thefront matter, one for each chapter, or both.
As the epigraph toThe Sum of All Fears,Tom Clancy quotesWinston Churchill in the context ofthermonuclear war: "Why, you may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together – what do you get? The sum of their fears."[4]
The epigraph toE. L. Doctorow'sRagtime quotesScott Joplin's instructions to those who play his music, "Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast."
The epigraph toTheodore Herzl'sAltneuland is "If you will it, it is no dream..." which became a slogan of the Zionist movement.
ASamuel Johnson quotation serves as an epigraph inHunter S. Thompson's novelFear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Stephen King uses many epigraphs in his writing, usually to mark the beginning of another section in a novel. An unusual example isThe Stand wherein he uses lyrics from certain songs to express the metaphor used in a particular part.
Cormac McCarthy opens his 1985 novelBlood Meridian with three epigraphs: quotations from French writer and philosopherPaul Valéry, from GermanChristian mystic andGnosticJacob Boehme, and a 1982 news clipping from theYuma Sun reporting the claim of members of anEthiopian archeological excavation that a fossilized skull three hundred millennia old seemed to have been scalped.
The epigraphs to the preamble ofGeorges Perec'sLife: A User's Manual (La Vie mode d'emploi) and to the book as a whole warn the reader that tricks are going to be played and that all will not be what it seems.
Quotation fromWoodrow Wilson'sThe State on the title page of every issue ofThe Bohemian Review, a magazine endorsing independence of Czechs and Slovaks to Austria-Hungary in 1917–1918 (example).
Elizabeth C. Bunce's Edgar Award-winning Myrtle Hardcastle mystery series, beginning withPremeditated Myrtle includes epigraphs by the fictional 19th century scholar H.M. Hardcastle at the beginning of each chapter of the five-book series.
John Green'sThe Fault in Our Stars has a quotation from a fictitious novel,An Imperial Affliction, which features prominently as a part of the story.
Dean Koontz'sThe Book of Counted Sorrows began as a fictional book of poetry from which Koontz would "quote" when no suitable existing option was available; Koontz simply wrote all these epigraphs himself. Many fans, rather than realizing the work was Koontz' own invention, apparently believed it was a real, but rare, volume; Koontz later collected the existing verse into an actual book.[5]
Prologue, an opening to a story that establishes context and may give background
Keynote, the first non-specific talk on a conference spoken by an invited (and usually famous) speaker in order to sum up the main theme of the conference.
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