epigrams/epigraphs

[Watcher55]

I don't know the term for them I'm horrible with tech terms (I'm like the color blind driver who knows the top light means "stop" and the bottom light means "go") and I'll change the subject line, if I need to, as soon as someone enlightens me but I love 'em. I use them to:

set the mood
draw parallels/clashes
provide blanks for the chapter to fill

There are a few chapters where the narrator refers to them (especially if they have historic relevance to the setting or characters).

As writers do y'all use them (a lot, occasionally, not at all)? Why why not? What are some of the disadvantages?

As readers do you read them (carefully and let them sink in before continuing, take a quick look and get on with the story, curse the author)? Why why not?


"It depends..." answers are most welcome but let's pretend that no one uses them just because they can.

[bcomet]

I love them when they fit and work to enhance the beginning of a novel or section (part) of one.
It can lead me into the story (or new section) with mood, theme, tone, art, etc.

What I find cumbersome and distracting is, when reading, if there is a quote (etc.) at the head of every chapter, because once I'm "in" a story, I want to stay in, and at the head of each chapter, these start to be annoying interruptions that pull me out of the story to have to read.

I also don't like the nonfic books that have side columns on every page with "extra" stuff to read as it also pulls me out of the narrative.

[polymath]

A formal name for leading content of a literary work or a division, chapter, subchapter, section is epigraph. I've also seen rubric, prompt, epitaph, epithet, inscription, testimonial, and epigram, which suggests the many purposes and aesthetics they like prefatory content serve.

An epigraph is often typeset in italics, block indented signaling a cite or quote, and ideally like prefatory content provides commentary contributing to understanding of the action to come.

[Watcher55]

A formal name for leading content of a literary work or a division, chapter, subchapter, section is epigraph. I've also seen rubric, prompt, epitaph, epithet, inscription, testimonial, and epigram, which suggests the many purposes and aesthetics they like prefatory content serve.

An epigraph is often typeset in italics, block indented signaling a cite or quote, and ideally like prefatory content provides commentary contributing to understanding of the action to come.

From the great big Websters:

The definitions of epigraph includes this:.
“2: a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work (as a novel) or a division of it to suggest its theme”

The definitions of epigram doesn’t mention the same usage, but I like the term because this definition strikes me as a fitting metaphor:
“3: a small piece of meat (as of lamb game poultry) usu. Breaded and fried and served with a sauce and vegetables as an entrée”

[polymath]

A beauty and a horror of language is we language users get to choose our own meanings for terms and use them for persuasive rhetorical purposes, not least of which is internally imposed meanings for shaping our thoughts. The horrors arise over whether a sufficiently meaningful consensus arrives at a similarly enough understanding or else communication fails.

I'm delighted by your use of epigram. I also find epitaph an exquisite term for an epigraph, especially when one stands as dead as a headstone.

In many ways as well, novel titles have an epigraphic quality when closely related to a topical theme.

[Watcher55]

A beauty and a horror of language is we language users get to choose our own meanings for terms and use them for persuasive rhetorical purposes, not least of which is internally imposed meanings for shaping our thoughts. The horrors arise over whether a sufficiently meaningful consensus arrives at a similarly enough understanding or else communication fails.

From a writer's standpoint, I think part of "horror" is part of the fun. It's the art of using context and subtext to define a word before (after/as) we spring the, shall we say, manipulated word meanings on the audience.

[Watcher55]

What I find cumbersome and distracting is, when reading, if there is a quote (etc.) at the head of every chapter, because once I'm "in" a story, I want to stay in, and at the head of each chapter, these start to be annoying interruptions that pull me out of the story to have to read.

I agree. They by should be limite to sections that mark a change in POV and setting or sections where the epigram (in these cases) is intended to keep the reader “in” the story. Too many and they clutter up the place. If they're (in the writer's mind) purely obligatory, they clutter up the place.

[polymath]

From a writer's standpoint, I think part of "horror" is part of the fun. It's the art of using context and subtext to define a word before (after/as) we spring the, shall we say, manipulated word meanings on the audience.

Yeah, fun from the Pushmi-pullyu risk-reward of clever darlings counterposed by artful language, rhetorical vice or virtue, disruptive or engaging, decorum appropriate to any given context.

A project in progress I read and responded to not so long ago other responders condemned for over the top purple prose. I disagreed. The prose was precisely appropriate to the fable form of the piece. My only sense of a shortcoming was the narrative's unrealized unity. However, the creative vision was intact. The main dramatic complication was too subtended. The writer hadn't recognized the complication. I suggested what I felt the complication was based on recurring motifs which thematically connected. The conflicted desires of staying in eternal blissful childhood and engaging in the privileges and obligations and trials of full adulthood, appropriate for late young adult to early adult audiences. The prose fit that target, in my estimation.

[dios4vida]

If you hate epigraphs then never read R.A. Salvatore. He usually breaks his novels into 3-4 sections, each beginning with a 1-2 page epigraph written from the protaganist's POV, usually as a first-person musing on life and touching on the general theme of the upcoming section. His novels were the first I encountered that did this and it threw me off for a while, until I really sat and thought about them (they're usually chock full of rather philosophical ideas, especially for a fantasy novel). Once I saw the deeper thematic connections and the morality issues involved I started to really like them. I personally don't do it in my novels and I'm glad every novel I read doesn't do this, but it is nice every once in a while.

I agree with bcomet and Watcher, the quotes at each chapter beginning are very distracting. I read Inkheart by Cornelia Funke and each chapter began with a quote from famous novels. I understood her intention, since it's a fantasy where books come to life, but it got me thinking about other narratives and characters and it instantly pulled me from HER story. Definitely a no-no, in my opinion.

I read another series (can't remember which right now) where they began each chapter with a quote from within the narrative - there was an ancient text that was central to the plot that the author quoted, and that worked very well. It gave a bit of intrigue as you slowly piece this text together and figure out its connections and implications to the story. That was a very good way to bring some intrigue and mystery and clues to the novel without having to casually intersperse them into the narrative itself. If an epigraph must be done, this is absolutely the way to do it. It was very successful.

[steve]

Egocentric and unnecessary.

Exceptions for the etymology at the start of MOBY DICK, Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES, and McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN.

[Watcher55]

Egocentric and unnecessary.

Exceptions for the etymology at the start of MOBY DICK, Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES, and McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN.

I'm trying to imagine a writer who's not egocentric and the closest I get is one who claims it not true.

Unnecessary? Most options are, but when used properly they tend to enhance the product.

[Watcher55]

If you hate epigraphs then never read R.A. Salvatore. He usually breaks his novels into 3-4 sections, each beginning with a 1-2 page epigraph written from the protaganist's POV, usually as a first-person musing on life and touching on the general theme of the upcoming section. His novels were the first I encountered that did this and it threw me off for a while, until I really sat and thought about them (they're usually chock full of rather philosophical ideas, especially for a fantasy novel). Once I saw the deeper thematic connections and the morality issues involved I started to really like them. I personally don't do it in my novels and I'm glad every novel I read doesn't do this, but it is nice every once in a while.

I wasn't thinking of the longer form of epigraph (but isn't that why we post?) but I agree. This form is awful tricky and a writer should be supremely confident when using it.

[polymath]

Epigram:

"What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;
Its body brevity, and wit its soul."
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Epigraph:

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it liveth, it bringeth forth much fruit." — John 12:24, epigraph to The Brother's Karamazoz, Dostoevsky.

Epitaph:

"Remember youth when this you see, prepare for death and follow me." Headstone of Arletta Guthrie, Mullet Pond Village cemetery, died age 16 of the 1918 flu pandemic.

[J. T. SHEA]

Epigraphs, epitaphs, epithets, epigrams!? Damn blast! Why not expletives instead?

Seriously, I do like them, both as reader and writer. Each of my short chapters is titled and has a single line quotation from within the chapter.

But Watcher55 is right. I'm going to add a small piece of breaded and fried meat to the start of each chapter. Let's see enhanced e-books beat that!

[polymath]

Lest we overlook epistle, in literary terms, a soliloquy or one-sided correspondence as in a letter.

Greek root prefix epi- meaning on, at, besides, after. Epidermis. An epithet can also be a synecdoche or metonymy, exotic tropes that are more commonplace than might be expected, not necessarily an expletive. Big Tiny, an epithet that's also a metonymy, a characteristic of an entity that stands for the whole; all hands on deck, where hands as a part of the whole is a synecdoche.