Epigraph
A short quotation set at the beginning of a book, chapter, or essay to suggest its theme.
An epigraph is a short quotation placed at the opening of a book, chapter, section, or essay. Its function is half-introduction, half-key: it tells the reader, before the first sentence of the work proper, what register, mood, or argument is about to follow.
Epigraphs work by indirection. A novel that opens with a line from Heraclitus is signalling that change and flux are about to be central. A chapter that opens with a tweet is announcing a different bargain with the reader entirely.
Used well, an epigraph compresses an entire interpretive frame into a single line. Used badly, it shows off. The test is simple: does the work need it? If the chapter would mean exactly the same without it, the epigraph is decoration.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Keep reading the glossary
A short, eye-catching quote lifted from an article and displayed in large type for emphasis.
A long quotation set off as its own indented paragraph, without quotation marks.
A passage repeated verbatim from a written or spoken source, with attribution.
A short, sharp statement that compresses a truth or observation into a single line.