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An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. They are among the best examples of the power of poetry to compress insight and wit Poetic epigramsOr, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge said,
This form originated in Ancient Greek poetry, whose most famous example is Simonides's epitaph for the Spartan dead after the Battle of Thermopylae,which can be found in Herodotus' work The Histories (7.228), to the Spartans:
Non-poetic epigramsOccasionally, 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." Dorothy Parker's witty one-liners can be considered epigrams. Also, Macdonald Carey's legendary line "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" can be considered an epigram, as the meaning of life is concisely explained in a simile. The term is sometimes used for particularly pointed or much-quoted quotations taken from longer works. See alsoAn epigraph is an inscription on a building or a quotation used to introduce a written work.
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