(from Greek epigramma "an inscription"): (1) An inscription in verse or prose on a building, tome, or coin (2) a short verse or motto appearing at the beginning of a longer poem or the title page of a novel, at the heading of a new section or paragraph of an essay or other literary work to establish mood or raise thematic concerns The opening epigram to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is one such example (3) A short, humorous poem, often written in couplets, that makes a satiric point Coleridge once described this third type of epigram using an epigram himself: "A dwarfish whole, / Its body brevity, and wit its soul "
An epigram is a short saying or poem which expresses an idea in a very clever and amusing way. a short sentence that expresses an idea in a clever or amusing way (epigramma, from , from epi- ( EPICENTER) + graphein ). Short poem treating concisely, pointedly, and often satirically a single thought or event and often ending with a witticism or ingenious turn of thought. By extension, the term applies to a terse, sage, or witty (often paradoxical) saying, usually in the form of a generalization. Writers of Latin epigrams included Catullus and Martial. The form was revived in the Renaissance. Later masters of the epigram have included Ben Jonson; François VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld; Voltaire; Alexander Pope; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Oscar Wilde; and George Bernard Shaw
A pithy, sometimes satiric couplet or quatrain which was popular in classic Latin literature and in European and English literature of the Renaissance and the neo-Classical era Epigrams comprise a single thought or event and are often aphoristic with a witty or humorous turn of thought Coleridge wrote the following definition: What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul (See also Monostich, Heroic Couplet) (Compare Allegory, Apologue, Didactic Poetry, Fable, Gnome, Proverb)
A short poem with a witty turn of thought or a wittily condensed expression in prose It was originally a form of monumental inscription in ancient Greece but was developed into a literary form by the poets of the Hellenistic age and by Martial, a Roman poet whose Epigrams (AD 86-102) were often obscenely insulting The art of the epigram was cultivated in France and Germany by Voltaire, Schiller and others during the 17th and 18th centuries Many of Sassoon's anti-war poems are epigrammatic G
a brief witty poem Randle Cotgrave (1611) translates "Epigramme" as "An Epigram; a Couplet, Stanzo, or short Poeme, wittily taxing a particular person, or fault; also, a title, inscription, or superscription "
originally any poem carved in stone (on tombstones, buildings, gates, and so forth), but in modern usage a very short, usually witty verse with a quick turn at the end Close Window
A very short, witty poem: Sir, I admit your general rule,/That every poet is a fool,/But you yourself may serve to show it,/That every fool is not a poet (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)