Epigram

The word derives from the Greek ἐπίγραμμα (epígramma, "inscription", from ἐπιγράφειν [epigráphein], "to write on, to inscribe").

The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which typically do not show those qualities.

The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuaries – including statues of athletes – and on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...".

All the same, the origin of epigram in inscription exerted a residual pressure to keep things concise, even when they were recited in Hellenistic times.

Hellenistic epigrams are also thought of as having a "point" – that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist.

Since their collections helped form knowledge of the genre in Rome and then later throughout Europe, Epigram came to be associated with 'point', especially because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius and Nicarchus) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of "satura", hexameter satire, as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal.

Its content makes it clear how popular such poems were: Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.

[3][4][5] His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre.

Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77): Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus.

In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb, especially in the translations of the Bible and the Greek and Roman poets.

The first work of English literature penned in North America was Robert Hayman's Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland, which is a collection of over 300 epigrams, many of which do not conform to the two-line rule or trend.

By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar.