Epigraph

The word epigraph has two meanings, depending on the context.

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In literature, an epigraph is a quotation that is placed at the start of a work or section that expresses in some succinct way an aspect or theme of what is to follow.

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The epigraph may serve as a banner, to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional context. The long quotation from Dante's Inferno that prefaces T. S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' is part of a speech by one of the damned souls in Dante's Hell. Linking it to the monologue which forms Eliot's poem adds a comment and a dimension to Prufrock's confession. The epigraph to Eliot's "Gerontion" is a quotation from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.

Literary canon: REDIRECT Western canon...

Dante: DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe) is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various National Research and Education Networks in Europe and surrounding regions. It was established in 1993 as a limited liab...

Inferno: __NOTOC__...