Epigram

The epigram ( altgr. ἐπίγραμμα epigramma " inscription" ) is originally an inscription on a votive offering, a tomb, a work of art and the like, purely for the purpose of the description of the object and its meaning.

Later, these inscriptions were given a poetic extension by giving in most concise version of the meaning, usually in couplets, even feelings and thoughts room ties that bound itself to the person, act or event in question, and resolved so out into an independent literary genre. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing explains the epigram as a poem, in which excited the nature of the actual inscription our attention and curiosity on any single object and more or less put off "in order to satisfy them with one."

Expectancy and digestion are therefore the two essential parts of the epigram, curious of which the former ( like a puzzle) by an apparent contradiction, the latter is brought about by a surprising interpretation of the meaning (hence the German name epigram for epigram, created by Philip of Zesen ). Founder of the epigrammatic art was Simonides of Ceos, whose epigrams, sealed in large part as monuments of the fighters in the Persian wars, patterns of poetic conception and are distinguished by clarity of thought and great simplicity. As a result, the epigram was broad care, and the poetic sense of the Greeks is unfolded in like little poems for a long time a great grace, versatility and dexterity, even after they had disappeared into larger productions the force.

History

A part of the rich national treasure of Greek epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology. From the Greeks the epigrammatic poetry came to Rome and was maintained here with fondness, but soon took the predominantly satirical character. In the period of Augustus, the first Roman poet and the chief men of the state are named among the Epigrammdichtern. In this time Domitius Marsus falls. But the most significant thing has been preserved from this kind of poetry of the Romans, the epigrams of Martial; still emerges Ausonius in later times. Even with the Romance peoples, the epigram was mostly the acrid character, but was redesigned in part to Madrigal, partly for sonnet. The historical name for a satirical epigram is in the German barbed rhyme.

Most popular it was in France, where Clément Marot (1495-1544) is cited as the first known poet in this genre. By means of the epigram used to express the sentenced to silence political opposition, especially since Richelieu times and just before the outbreak of the revolution. In England mainly knew John Owen (1616-1683) to make the sound of Martial. The nickname "The English Martial " was another John Owen ( 1564-1622 ). As the oldest German epigrammatic products are the " Priameln " of the 13th and 14th centuries, which are, however, similar to the epigrams of the East (India, Persia ), more general moral and wise sayings.

In the 17th century it was held in Germany on the model of the Old and Martial took sarcastic sharpness to the pattern; for example, Friedrich von Logau and Christian Wernicke or later in the 19th century, Heinrich von Kleist. Goethe and Schiller are epigrams, except for the sharp striking Xenia, mostly epigrams more general content. Similarly, in Lessing and Friedrich Haug. From more recent times are August Graf von Platen, Franz Grillparzer, Friedrich Hebbel, Erich Kästner, Friedrich Theodor Vischer and Hans Georg Stengel to lead. The most popular form of the epigram is still the couplet, which can be regarded as a perfect formal scheme in which the hexameter the expectation of the pentameter is the short summary information. Meanwhile, even the short iambic is with matching Reimverschlingungen as a carrier of the epigram.