Lably
Skip to content

Epigram

Brief memorable statement

  • 7 min read
  • 5 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Satire and Roman Empire

Lab · Class 12Story: The Tiger King

The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which typically do not show those qualities.

Ancient Greek

The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuaries – including statues of athletes – and on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". 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 epigrams.

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 characteristic metre, elegiac couplets). In the classical 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 things concise, 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, but Meleager of Gadara and Philippus 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 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.

A major source for Greek literary epigram is the Greek 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 the Imperial period and Late Antiquity into the compiler's own Byzantine era – a thousand years of short elegiac texts on a wide variety of topics. The Anthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous homosexual epigrams called the Μοῦσα Παιδικἠ (Mousa Paidike, "The Boyish Muse").

Sign in to keep reading

4 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Literature

MahabharataAncient smṛti text and Sanskrit epicOxford English DictionaryHistorical dictionary of the English languageScience fictionLiterary genreIliadEpic poem attributed to HomerLiteratureWritten work of artPoetryForm of literature