epigraph

(redirected from epigraphical)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.
Related to epigraphical: epigraphist

epigraph

a quotation at the beginning of a book, chapter, etc., suggesting its theme
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Epigraph

 

since the 14th century, a quotation used to open a work of literature or part of a work. Sources for epigraphs are folk literature, the Bible, aphorisms, fiction, and letters. Sometimes writers compose their own epigraphs. The epigraph introduces a fresh point of view to the topic under consideration, elucidating its meaning and indicating the traditions with which the work is linked.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
The female of the steles could be labelled a Lady of Death - indeed a Lady of Victory who is referred to in a wide range of texts, from Sanskrit epics to epigraphical royal eulogies in Tamil.
Other early philosophers, notably the advocate of humanism and ethical relativism Protagoras, bump up against ordinary Athenians for whom we have scraps of epigraphical evidence, such as a man named Simon, who was perhaps the proprietor of a cobbler shop Socrates frequented.
The second phase begins with the Establishment of calibrated Political Kingdoms.Though inscriptions and structural remains form the Major Sources for the study of the same, since the present Study is based on the Epigraphical Data alone, structural details are not touched.
Some writers today call the women deacons of the early church "deaconesses," even where ancient literary or epigraphical (tombstone) references specifically call them "deacons."
Historical Scholarship in the Late Renaissance, where he asserts that Morales' work can be seen as "marking something of a transition in the use of epigraphical evidence: as well as citing many inscriptions," and making "some theoretical reflections on their use, indicating both that inscriptions could be forged, and that they were not simply texts" (2005: 124).
It turns to evidence not only from the literary record, but epigraphical sources and votive deposits.
Thus, Pagan's chapter on the Catilinarian conspiracy is almost entirely concerned with Sallust's monograph on the event and only glances at the Ciceronian tradition, her chapter on the Bacchanalian affair is devoted to Livy's narrative rather than to the epigraphical record of the event, and so on.
IF TYERMAN IS, TO BE FRANK, A VERY POOR stylist, he nevertheless offers many things new and insightful--besides drawing on a half-century's worth of archaeological, historical, and epigraphical scholarship since the time of Runciman.
Strauss begins with the abduction of Helen and ends with the Trojan horse and the sack of Troy, retelling the story by following Homer's narrative while footnoting parallels from contemporary archaeological, graphic, and epigraphical material to support the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey.