The Art of the Epigraph : How Great Books Begin

INTRODUCTION

I’m always surprised when someone claims not to read epigraphs. To me, that’s an offering refused, a pleasure skipped. Those intriguing quotations, sayings, snippets of songs and poems, do more than just set the tone for the experience ahead: the epigraph informs us about the author’s sensibility. Are we in the hands of a literalist or a wit? A cynic or a romantic? A writer of great ambition or a miniaturist? The epigraph hints at hidden stories and frequently comes with one of its own.

In hunting for epigraphs, I’ve discovered them as far back as the fourteenth century, in The Canterbury Tales, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a more serious scholar traced the tradition back even further. The cumbersome (occasionally amusing) prefaces found in early novels like Don Quixote (1605) and Gulliver’s Travels (1726) can be considered the literary forebears of the crisp, succinct epigrams that became the fashion in the twentieth century. Glamorous modernists like Hemingway and Fitzgerald popularized epigraphs, challenging authors to appear as learned and clever in their use of them ever since.

Some of my favorite authors are purists who present their work without outside association or adornment, without a wink or a clue. Flaubert, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Patti Smith. I respect and admire their silence before their books begin. However, this book celebrates the generosity of authors willing to part the curtain and show us a glimpse of their mental furniture; to give us a preview of what they think is vital, funny, and true. George Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, C. S. Lewis, Lorrie Moore. Of course, their books would be every bit as memorable and important without epigraphs appended, but wouldn’t we miss that extra element of anticipation? It would be like going to see Vertigo or Midnight in Paris and not taking your seat until after the opening title sequence. I always want to see how mood is established—and to submit.

Epigraphs appeal to those of us who occasionally need the kind of bolstering an ingenious turn of phrase or inspiring piece of wisdom can provide. I’m with Dorothy Parker when she says, “I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound—if I can remember any of the damn things.” Thankfully, memory aides abound in the front matter of many of the world’s best books. All that truth, humor, and novelty of expression presorted for us by consummate artists and cherished friends.

So yes, The Art of the Epigraph can be enjoyed like any quotation book. Here you will find advice on how to live well, be brave, avoid mistakes, apply the correct etiquette, adjust your expectations, appreciate quirkiness (your own and others’), attract a lover, break out of a rut, and dodge obligations. But you will also encounter fascinating conversations conducted over centuries and across cultures and genres. Writers communing with other writers, sometimes resulting in odd but delightful coincidences, like the fact that Susan Sontag and Mary Higgins Clark both turned to Tennyson when selecting epigraphs for their books. Divisions disappear; ideas and affinities are more clearly revealed.

Epigraphs remind us that writers are readers. I suppose that is what I like best about them. The experience I have when I read, encountering lines that perfectly express what I believe but can’t articulate, that open up a new point of view, that make me feel understood or filled with joy, as brilliant and lofty as I might consider that book’s author—it happens to them too. And that’s what’s on display in the epigraph: an author acknowledging his or her place in the fellowship of readers.