Prose and Poetry: Epigram Form This Is a Very Short, Highly Polished

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Prose and Poetry: Epigram Form This is a very short, highly polished poem. In English, verse epigrams virtually always use rhyme; they often take the form of a couplet or quatrain (four-line stanza). Epigrams are often collected together into groups or series. Characteristics An epigram is marked by conciseness. Every word is chosen for impact. Most epigrams make a single point. They often contain a surprising twist of some kind. In ancient Greece, the epigram was frequently used for praise or compliment, as in this example: On a silver relief of a satyr Diodorus did not sculpture this satyr, he put him to sleep. The silver holds sleeping life: one poke and you'll wake him up. Plato, translated by Gillian Spraggs In Roman times the epigram became strongly associated with satire. A popular form of epigram is the brief satirical portrait. Here is a modern example: To a tourist in the V&A From gallery to gallery you pass And point your camera into every case, Yet look at nothing. Tell me, what satisfactions Derive from spurning things for their reflections? Gillian Spraggs Another kind of satirical epigram reflects, usually ironically, on wickedness, stupidity or false values. In the epigram that follows, the poet and artist William Blake expresses his contempt for the fashions in art that dominated after the end of the Renaissance (the 'Age of Raphael'): Advice of the Popes who succeeded the Age of Raphael Degrade first the Arts if you'd Mankind Degrade. Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light & hot shade: Give high Price for the worst, leave the best in disgrace, And with Labours of Ignorance fill every place. William Blake (written about 1808) Blake is using irony: his own beliefs and values are opposite to those recommended in this epigram. This is the unexpected twist in this poem. It is common for the twist in an epigram to have an ironic flavour. Advice If a museum object, or a style of art, should prompt you to some crisp reflections, or watching museum visitors inclines you towards satire, consider writing an epigram, or a series of epigrams. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Greek Epigram and Byzantine Culture Steven D
Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-48023-9 — Greek Epigram and Byzantine Culture Steven D. Smith Frontmatter More Information GREEK EPIGRAM AND BYZANTINE CULTURE Sexy, scintillating, and sometimes scandalous, Greek epigrams from the age of the Emperor Justinian commemorate the survival of the sensual in a world transformed by Christianity. Around 567 ce, the poet and historian Agathias of Myrina published his Cycle, an anthol- ogy of epigrams by contemporary poets who wrote about what mattered to elite men in sixth-century Constantinople: harlots and dancing girls, chariot races in the hippodrome, and the luxuries of the Roman bath. But amid this banquet of worldly delights, ascetic Christianity – pervasive in early Byzantine thought – made sensual pleasure both more complicated and more compelling. In this book, Steven D. Smith explores how this miniature classical genre gave expression to lurid fantasies of domination and submission, con- straint and release, and the relationship between masculine and feminine. The volume will appeal to literary scholars and historians interested in Greek poetry, late antiquity, Byzantine studies, early Christianity, gender, and sexuality. steven d. smith is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Hofstra University, New York. His publications include Greek Identity and the Athenian Past in Chariton: The Romance of Empire (2007) and Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus (Cambridge University Press, 2014). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-48023-9 — Greek Epigram and Byzantine Culture Steven D. Smith Frontmatter More Information greek culture in the roman world Editors susan e.
[Show full text]
THE PARADOX of AMATORY EPIGRAM Kathryn Gutzwiller in One of His Deceptively Simple Epigrams, Catullus Shows How Well He Has Mast
THE PARADOX OF AMATORY EPIGRAM Kathryn Gutzwiller In one of his deceptively simple epigrams, Catullus shows how well he has mastered the Hellenistic art of variation: Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat. dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua. (Catullus 70) My woman says that she prefers to marry no one more than me, not even if Juppiter himself asks her. She says it, but what a woman says to a lover who desires her must be written on the wind and rushing water. Catullus models his poem on a set of three epigrams, by Callimachus, Asclepiades, and Meleager, preserved in the AP in what was likely the original sequence from Meleager’s Garland. It would be intriguing to explore in detail how Catullus conveys his anguish at Lesbia’s betrayal through a process of intertextual allusion to a series of epigrams that already displayed variation one of the other within the context in which Catullus likely encountered them. I cite the poem here, however, only for a verbal play in the second couplet. In the last epigram from the AP sequence, the one in which Meleager demonstrates his extraordinary ability to rework and make new the best epigrams of his predecessors, an abandoned woman complains that the oaths of lovers are carried away on water (59 GP (= AP 5.8); cf. Callimachus 11 GP (= AP 5.6 = 25 Pf.), Asclepiades 9 GP (= AP 5.7)). Catullus modi es this line not only by reversing the gender roles, making himself the abandoned lover, but also by adding a paradoxical contrast between speaking and writing: what a woman says (dicit) to her lover must be written (scribere), not in a love poem, but on the wind and the water.
[Show full text]
15. Identity and Irony. Martial's Tenth Book, Horace, and the Tradition of Roman Satire
15. IDENTITY AND IRONY. MARTIAL'S TENTH BOOK, HORACE, AND THE TRADITION OF ROMAN SATIRE Elena Merli Although Martial strongly invokes the Latin epigrammatic tradition in his poetological statements-and thus in part actually constitutes this tradition-the intertextual references in his poetry point far beyond the genre of epigram. In his monograph on Martial, John Sullivan briefly discusses the role of satire and elegy in his view our poet's most important intertextual points of reference. According to Sullivan, Martial takes from satire his critical view of society and human behav ior, and from elegy especially the element of self-representation. Even prior to Sullivan, of course, the question of Martial's relationship to satire was posed frequently, and the answers focused on the humorous and mimic elements; on the poet's description of "types" such as the parvenu, the hypocrite and the legacy-hunter; and on his criticism of Roman society and the system of clientela. 1 To my mind, the limitation of this approach consists in the diffi culty of adequately defining the object "satire". Scholarship has too often abstained from seeking precise, concrete lines and tendencies of development in this genre, and done so in good conscience on the grounds of satire's intrinsic uarietas? As far as our topic is concerned, this fact has led to a kind of optical illusion: the relationship between Martial and Juvenal has moved to center stage, while Martial's much broader and more nuanced relationship to the various forms and stages of the satirical tradition has receded into the background.
[Show full text]
1.3 Ideas of Latin Epigram Through Time
CHAPTER ONE What Is an Epigram?: Defining a Genre Mario Citroni 1.1 The Problem Generally regarded by ancients and moderns alike as a minor, marginal genre, epigram has displayed a vitality no less durable than that of the most prestigious genres. The composition of epigrams is already attested at the end of the eighth century BCE (the age to which the earliest extant Greek verse inscription dates back), and continued almost unbroken until late antiquity. After an intermittent presence in the Middle Ages, the fresh flourishing of the genre in the Renaissance, based on the recovery of its ancient forms, opened up the rich and lively history of epigram in European literature stretching through to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Collections of epigrams were also written during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and are still written today, albeit episodically and with a more idiosyncratic and experimental attitude. Such a long‐lived and extensive presence is an indication of the genre’s capacity to respond to substantive, non‐ephemeral needs of poets and audiences in very different historical circumstances and cultural settings. And yet defining this genre has always been very problematic. There are two distinct but interconnected reasons for this: a variety of content and forms that appearsCOPYRIGHTED hard to fit into a single category; MATERIAL and the uncertainty of the boundaries separating it from other genres with similar characteristics. The spectrum of content is almost limitless. The mode of utterance can range from the speech of a varyingly identifiable voice to dialogue, narration, A Companion to Ancient Epigram, First Edition.
[Show full text]
Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus an Enquiry Into Two Lost Generations University of Liverpool, 14-15 June 2016
Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus An Enquiry Into Two Lost Generations University of Liverpool, 14-15 June 2016 Ewen Bowie (Oxford) Pauline LeVen (Yale) School of the Arts Library Benjamin Cartlidge (Oxford) Enrico Magnelli (Florence) 19 Abercromby Square Martine Cuypers (TCD) Thomas Nelson (Cambridge) Marco Fantuzzi (Macerata) Maria Noussia (Thessaloniki) L69 7ZG Liverpool Lucia Floridi (Milan) S. Douglas Olson (Freiburg) Marco Perale Annette Harder (Groningen) Peter Parsons (Oxford) [email protected] Richard Hunter (Cambridge) Marco Perale (Liverpool) Guendalina Taietti Gregory Hutchinson (Oxford) K. Spanoudakis (Rethymno) [email protected] Jan Kwapisz (Warsaw) Guenda Taietti (Liverpool) Jan Kwapisz Rebecca Lämmle (Basel) Agnieszka Toma (Wrocław) [email protected] Hellenistic Poetry before Callimachus An international conference at the University of Liverpool 14-15 June 2016 You who walk past my tomb, know that I am son and father of Callimachus of Cyrene. You must know both: the one led his country’s forces once, the other sang beyond the reach of envy. Callimachus, Epigram 21 Pf., tr. F.J. Nisetich Callimachus’ epitaph for the tomb of his father is notorious for how perplexingly little it says about the deceased. We are told neither his name nor profession, whereas the name that resounds loud and clear is that of the author of the epigram. This is a measure of how Callimachus outshone his father. The Greeks may have found delight in being defeated by their children (cf. Pl. Mx. 247a), yet we are less impressed. Even for the sake of Callimachus himself, would it not be rewarding to know who his father was? The epigram illustrates the broader problem we have with the poet’s closest literary ancestors.
[Show full text]
Martial's and Juvenal's Attitudes Toward Women Lawrence Phillips Davis
University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Master's Theses Student Research 5-1973 Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women Lawrence Phillips Davis Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/masters-theses Recommended Citation Davis, Lawrence Phillips, "Martial's and Juvenal's attitudes toward women" (1973). Master's Theses. Paper 454. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MARTIAL' S AND JUVENAL' S ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMEN BY LAWRENCE PHILLIPS DAVIS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF·ARTS IN ANCIENT LANGUAGES MAY 1973 APPROVAL SHEET of Thesis PREFACE The thesis offers a comparison between the views of Martial and Juvenal toward women based on selected .Epigrams of the former and Satire VI of the latter. Such a comparison allows the reader to place in perspective the attitudes of both authors in regard to the fairer sex and reveals at least a portion of the psychological inclination of both writers. The classification of the selected Epigrams ·and the se lected lines of Satire VI into categories of vice is arbi- . trary and personal. Subjective interpretation of vocabulary and content has dictated the limits and direction of the clas sification. References to scholarship regarding the rhetori cal, literary, and philosophic influences on Martial and Ju venal can be found in footnote6 following the chapter concern-· ~ng promiscuity.
[Show full text]
Greek Skoptic Epigram and ‘Popular’ Literature: Anth.Gr
Greek Skoptic Epigram and ‘Popular’ Literature: Anth.Gr. XI and the Philogelos Lucia Floridi REEK SKOPTIC EPIGRAM, an epigrammatic subgenre whose main practitioners flourished during the first Gand second centuries A.D., and which is preserved mainly in Book XI of the Greek Anthology, targets physical defects or moral vices, directing its satire towards persons who repre- sent generic human categories. Categorization into character types, concision, and a tendency to concentrate the humour in the final punch line are characteristics that skoptic epigrams share with ‘popular’ literary genres such as comic tales, of which an ancient collection is represented by the Philogelos,1 the only certain jokebook to have survived from antiquity.2 It is well known that the definition of popular literature—and of popular culture in general—is problematic, especially for the ancient world.3 In order to distinguish what is ‘popular’ from 1 On the Philogelos see B. Baldwin, The Philogelos or Laughter-Lover (Amster- dam 1983); W. Hansen, Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature (Bloom- ington 1998) 272 ff.; M. Andreassi, Le facezie del Philogelos. Barzellette antiche e umorismo moderno (Lecce 2004); T. Braccini and M. Bettini, Come ridevano gli antichi (Philogelos) (Genoa 2008). I use the critical edition by R. D. Dawe, Philogelos (Munich/Leipzig 2000). Translations of the Philogelos are adapted from Baldwin; of Anth.Gr. XI from W. R. Paton’s Loeb (1918). 2 Remnants of another ancient Witzbuch could be those preserved by P.Heid. I 190, if R. Kassel, “Reste eines hellenistischen Spassmacherbuches auf einem Heidelberger Papyrus?” RhM 99 (1956) 242–245, is right in interpreting them as such; see also G.
[Show full text]
A Selection of Martial's Epigram
A SELECTION OF MARTIAL’S EPIGRAM Translated with a short Introduction by Peter Valente MARTIAL: THE BOHEMIAN EPIGRAMMATIST In AD 64, Martial left his home in the Spanish countryside, and moved to Rome to become a poet; he was in his early 20s. In the beginning, he had a difficult time adjusting to city life, and he often had to curry favor with a patron in order to eat or even clothe himself. The times had changed. The old relationship between a free man and his patron, such as Virgil and Horace enjoyed under Maecenas, wherein a poet could return the favor with his verses, was no longer possible under Augustus and Domitian. But as Martial’s fame grew, he began to enter the literary circles in Rome; there, he befriended Juvenal and Pliny the Younger. He admired the poetry of Catullus but had no use for Statius’ Thebaid, which was the representative epic poem of the time, and Statius felt the same about Martial’s epigrams. Martial was certainly prolific and yet he was also aware of his poetic misfires, the jokes that didn’t come off, the poems that just weren’t good, but he shows his wit in remarking that even if half the poems in a book were good then the book was good! Martial was not a precocious poet. The first two books of epigrams, on which his sterling reputation is based, appeared when he was in his mid to late 40s. From these first two books, to the time when he returned to the Spanish countryside, in 98 AD, he released a book virtually every year; he was close to 60 years old at the time.
[Show full text]
Martial and Juvenal in Epigram 12.18
Intertextuality between Friends: Martial and Juvenal in Epigram 12.18 This paper reads Martial’s late, enigmatic epigram to Juvenal (12.18) as a unique meditation on intertextuality and literary succession. In this poem, Martial imagines his younger friend’s burdensome daily life as a client in Rome, then boasts of his own serene new life in the Spanish countryside. Although the epigram is a product of Martial’s retirement years in Bilbilis (98-104[?] CE), we do not know exactly when it was composed or whether its addressee had started writing satire yet. These questions have significant stakes: not just a clearer picture of Juvenal’s chronology and his relationship with Martial, whose work provided so much inspiration for the Satires, but a better understanding of what Martial is trying to say about his friend. I argue that the poem presents a singular opportunity to consider a case of “instant” intertextuality and response by the model poet. Many scholars of different methodological stripes have taken Martial’s portrait of Iuvenalis playing the client as a (rare) testimonium on Juvenal’s life before the Satires. They date the publication of Book 1 to three or more years after Martial’s death (e.g., Duff 1970, Syme 1979, Braund 1996). But Epigram 12.18 itself constitutes the most significant evidence in favor of the alternative account: namely, that the two men’s writing careers overlapped briefly, and Martial was able to see some of the early Satires. For the vignette of Juvenal sweating in his toga as he visits “the thresholds of the powerful” (lines 4-5) evokes the recurrent images of clients in Satires 1, 3, and 5 (Pasoli 1982: 183-94).
[Show full text]
Callimachus and the Unsatisfactory Epitaph Matthew Hosty
“But who art thou?”: Callimachus and the Unsatisfactory Epitaph Matthew Hosty ALLIMACHUS’ reader-response epitaph for Timonoe runs as C follows (Anth.Pal. 7.522 / 40 G.-P. / 15 Pf.): Τιµονόη. – τίς δ’ ἐσσί; µὰ δαίµονας οὐ σ’ ἂν ἐπέγνων εἰ µὴ Τιµοθέου πατρὸς ἐπῆν ὄνοµα στήλῃ καὶ Μήθυµνα, τεὴ πόλις. ἦ µέγα φηµί χῆρον ἀνιᾶσθαι σὸν πόσιν Εὐθυµένη. The standard explanation is neatly summarised by Gow and Page: “The speaker, seeing the name Timonoe on a gravestone and reading further, discovers from the rest of the inscription that the grave is that of an acquaintance or friend.”1 This is cer- tainly the meaning assumed in the translation of Paton:2 Timonoe! But who art thou? By heaven I would not have recog- nised thee, had not thy father’s name Timotheus and thy city’s Methymna stood on the grave-stone. I know of a truth that thy widowed husband Euthymenes is in sore distress. Passing by the grave of a Timonoe, the speaker realises she is that Timonoe; the epigram articulates the horror of discovering by accident the death of a friend—more easily imagined for a modern reader, perhaps, as a Facebook post stumbled across during a coffee break. Even with Paton’s translation there is an intriguing un- certainty. Did the speaker already know Timonoe was dead? In other words, have we discovered her death, or only her resting- place? Paton translates ἦ … φηµί “I know of a truth,” which could convey either “Timonoe, I knew you were dead, and I 1 A. S. F.
[Show full text]
Aus: Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 119 (1997) 21–36 © Dr
ALEX HARDIE PHILITAS AND THE PLANE TREE aus: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 119 (1997) 21–36 © Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn 21 PHILITAS AND THE PLANE TREE* I. A Coan Mouseion Hellenistic Cos boasted a vigorous intellectual life. It was the seat of a distinguished school of medicine.1 It produced a historian and a few scholars.2 It also produced poets and musicians, and sent them abroad to compete in festivals.3 The Coans extended competitive hospitality through their own festivals, the Dionysia and the panhellenic Asclepieia Megala.4 And as might be expected, the festivals entailed businesslike contact with the Hellenistic texn›tai, the guilds of Artists of Dionysus.5 Cos also attracted poets for extended sojourns. In the third century, Theocritus and Herodas spent time on the island, and left permanent memorials in their poetry;6 and later, at the end of the second century, Meleager settled in Cos.7 Why did they come, and what professional milieu might they have found when they arrived? Cos’ Ptolemaic connections, in particular the birth there of Ptolemy Philadelphus in 309/308, will have been a focal point for foreign interest.8 In the literary sphere, the international reputation of Philitas of Cos as poet, scholar and teacher will no doubt have attracted personal adherents from other cities. Philitas tutored Philadelphus himself.9 The Homeric scholar Zenodotus was his pupil; and it may well have been on Cos that Philitas instructed the poet Hermesianax of Colophon, recorded as his ‘friend and pupil’ in a scholium on Nicander (Ther. 3).
[Show full text]
PATRONAGE in MARTIAL's EPIGRAMS the Evidence for Martial's Relations with His Patrons Is to Be Found Almost Exclusively in the E
CHAPTER ONE PATRONAGE IN MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS The evidence for Martial's relations with his patrons is to be found almost exclusively in the Epigrams themselves. The major exception is a letter written by Pliny the Younger around 103, on hearing the news of Martial's death (Ep. 3.21 )1. The letter is instructive enough to be given in full: Dear Cornelius Priscus, I hear that Valerius Martialis has died and I take it to heart. He was tal ented, clever, and keen, and his writings contained a lot of humour and mockery, but were also full of compliments. (2) I had sent him on his way with a travel allowance when he retired from Rome: I had given it (dederam) in recognition of our friendship (amicitiae), I had given it (dederam) also in recognition of the verses he has composed about me. (3) It was an ancient tradition to reward with honours or money those who had written the praises of individuals or cities; but in our days, like much else that was splendid and excellent, this was among the first things to go out of fashion. For now that we have ceased to perform praiseworthy deeds, we think it inappropriate to be praised at all. (4) You want to know the verses for which I rendered my thanks (gratiam rettuli)? I would refer you to the publication, if I did not know some of them by heart; if you like these, you can look up the rest in the book. (5) He addresses his Muse, instructs her to seek my house on the Es quiline, to appoach respectfully: But look to it that that you do not knock drunkenly on his elo quent door at an unsuitable time.
[Show full text]