Epigram

The word epigram means essentially an inscription, for example, on a monument like an epitaph. It has been used for a valediction, a homage, as in Samuel Johnson's 18th-century one for the writer Oliver Goldsmith: “He touched nothing that he did not adorn.” In more ways than one, it can finish someone off. It can be funny or poignant as in the Irish comedian Spike Milligan's (1918–2002) self-chosen epitaph: “I told you I was ill,” which manages to both praise himself for his prescience and chide the unobservant survivors. Inscriptions can of course be anonymous (“If God had not meant us to write on walls, he would never have given us an example”). The English humorist Alan Bennett (b. 1934) comments thus on the widespread instance of such graffiti: “When a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humor, the writing is on the wall.”

For some millennia, the epigram has flourished both in verse and prose. Ancient Greek epigrams were often elegies. The Romans gave the form, and much else, a brutal twist, especially visible in the verses of Martial (40–102/4CE): “Your penis is as large as your nose, Papylus, so you can smell it when it's erect.” The 17th-century English playwright and poet John Dryden nicely illustrates the use of poetry for epigrammatic comment: “The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, / But Shadwell never deviates into sense.” The use of deviate is unusual in such a context, and it settles its target's hash adroitly, as the 18th-century English poet Byron does to his contemporary Coleridge: “… explaining metaphysics to the nation / —I wish he would explain his explanation.”

The central thrust of the epigram lies normally in its brevity: the pursuit of snappiness. To this end, it often resembles the comic's one-liner or wisecrack, though not always. Listen to the 19th-century American humorist Mark Twain praising himself while apparently admitting deficiencies: “My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water.” Even so, such epigrams know instinctively they must not outstay their welcome. The Hungarian-born British 20th-century humorist George Mikes captures exactly this fact of life: “Even the best joke necessarily remains the one-yard sprint.” It is obvious that jokes and epigrams are on intimate speaking terms. However, it is not that epigrams are any more obliged than puns to be amusing; indeed, both can be owl serious, as in the [Page 213] play The Devil's Disciple by George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950): “Martyrdom … is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability,” or the only-too-true remark attributed to Shaw (although its origin has been disputed): “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” Although elongated shaggy-dog stories undoubtedly have their day, it is likely that the very act of miniaturizing is inherently entertaining. Little, or too little, is said so that the hearer or reader needs to supply some imagination or sense of humor to make all clear and pointed. The Irish wit Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), at his most fatuous, claimed that he “summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”

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