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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 epigrams
Or, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge said,
- What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;
- Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
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:
- ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
- (O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti täde/
- κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
- keimetha tois keinon rhämasi peithomenoi.)
- Which to keep the poetic context can be translated as:
- Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
- that here, obedient to their laws we lie
- or more literally as:
- Oh foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians
- that here we lie, obeying those words.
- Little strokes
- Fell great oaks.
- — Benjamin Franklin
- Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
- Now she's at rest — and so am I.
- — John Dryden
- I am His Highness' dog at Kew;
- Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
- — Alexander Pope
Non-poetic epigrams
Occasionally, 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 also
An epigraph is an inscription on a building or a quotation used to introduce a written work.
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