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Epigraph: Difference between revisions
"fan fiction" -> "fan works", transplanted misplaced example, merged Anime and Manga into "Anime and Manga", fixed section order, pothole texts, links
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"''Example is the best precept.''"
|[[Aesop's Fables|Aesop]] (620-564 BC)}}
{{quote|"''I am reminded of how Joe Queenan once suggested that if mediocre books were going to preface with quotes from great literature, how great literature could return the favour by prefacing themselves with quotes from Tom Clancy explaining the technical specifications of a military helicopter.''"
|[http://mightygodking.com/index.php/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-so-you-dont-have-to-read-it/ MightyGodKing] on ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Deathly Hallows''}}
The quotation of a line, excerpt or poetry done at the beginning or (more rarely) at the ending of a work, segment or chapter. Frequent in [[Literature]], shows up occasionally otherwise.
In [[Speculative Fiction]], it is often used to do an [[Encyclopedia Exposita]]. Can also be used for an [[As the Good Book Says...]] effect. See also [[Pretentious Latin Motto]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] ==▼
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Each episode of ''[[Harukanaru Toki no Naka de|Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou]]'' has the ending sequence start with a ''tanka'' poem taken from ''Kokin Wakashuu'' books.
* One of the trailers for ''[[End of Evangelion]]'' opens with a quote from Milton's ''Paradise Lost'' - namely, verses 146-150 from book 2.
* ''[[Bleach]]'' starts each tankubon (bound volume) with a small illustration of a character and a short poem that seems to be written in the voice of that character. And Kubo Tite's poetry is surprisingly ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090615193737/http://halcyonjazz.livejournal.com/103520.html good]''.▼
* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' is epigraphed by a passage from Revelation which coincides with the plot.▼
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Each chapter of ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' ends with one of these, which is alluded to in the title of the chapter.
* In the collected editions of ''[[The Sandman]]'', each story arc is preceded with two quotes. The first one reads as something deep and profound; the second a pithy, less serious comment on the same topic—from the story itself.
* The three issues of [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Black Orchid]]'' had quotes from Omar Khayyam, Lou Reed, and [[E. E. Cummings|e. e. cummings]] on the back covers.
== [[Fan
* Each chapter of ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' starts with one.
* At the start of each chapter of ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' there are [[Encyclopedia Exposita|extracts of self-help books on being a hero, some poetry, or texts that are implied to be from future documents/books]].
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* Pretty much anything Abicion has written since he watched ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]'' starts with one.
* In ''[[The Son of the Emperor]]'' at the start of each is chapter is a quote, usually from a historical figure.
* Each chapter of every story in the ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' fanfic cycle starts with one
* [[Fanfic]] writers often preface chapters with quotes [[Song Fic|from their favourite songs]]. In some cases the song has little to do with the actual contents of the fic, and is simply what the writer happened to be listening at the moment.▼
== [[Film]] ==
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* To bring context to the brutality that is about to be shown, The Passion of the Christ brings us this abbreviated quote from Isaiah 53: 5 "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; by His wounds we are healed"
* The opening credits sequence of [[The Breakfast Club]] includes a four-line quotation of the song "Changes" by [[David Bowie]].
* The
* ''[[The Tree of Life]]'' opens with a quotation from the [[The Bible|The Book of Job]]:"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation ... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
== [[Literature]] ==
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* Joe Abercrombie quotes the line from which the [[Literary Allusion Title|title of each of his books is taken]], in ''[[The First Law]]'' series.
* ''[[Watership Down]]'' has one for each chapter.
* The book ''[[The Diamond Age]]'' by [[Neal Stephenson]] starts with a short excerpt from a non-fiction book about sociological change.
* Katherine Kurtz's ''[[Deryni]]'' series quotes [[The Bible]].
* [[Barbara Hambly]]'s ''[[Literature/Bride Of The Rat God|Bride Of The Rat God]]'' quotes the I Ching.
* The title and chapter pages of [[Stephen King]]'s more epic novels quote anything and everything from [[T. S. Eliot]] and Thomas Wolfe to [[Blue Öyster
* [[Margaret Atwood]] is a big fan of epigraphs. The epigraph of ''[[The Handmaid's Tale]]'' has quotes from Jonathan Swift, the Bible and a proverb. ''Alias Grace'' has one or more before each section. Such as this, the epigraph for ''The Edible Woman'':
{{quote|"The surface on which you work (preferably marble), the tools, the ingredients and your fingers should be chilled throughout the operation..."
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{{quote|"Why do we remember the past, and not the future?" (Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time")}}
* Ellen Kushner's ''[[Swordspoint]]'' - and most of her novels - has one
* [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Waste Land]]'' has one. Somewhat notable in that it's a poem and that the epigraph is an important clue to what is going on.
** His "The Hollow Men", a ''shorter'' poem, not only has an epigraph, but ''the section in his Selected Poems containing only "The Hollow Men" has one as well''. If you look up "The Hollow Men" on the web you'll probably find the two given one after the other; they're ''both'' relevant to the poem's meaning.
* ''[[Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows]]'' quotes from [[Aeschylus]]'s ''Libation Bearers'' and Penn's ''Fruits of Solitude''.
* Each book of the ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' series begins with a different quote. ''Twilight'' has [[As the Good Book Says...|the Bible]], ''New Moon'' has [[Romeo and Juliet]], and ''Eclipse'' has the [[Robert Frost]]'s poem "Fire and Ice."
* The chapters in Annie Dillard's ''The Writing Life'' each begin with an epigraph.
* The chapters in ''[[The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants]]'' begin with epigraphs.
* '' City of Bones'', the first book of ''[[Mortal Instruments]]'', has quotes from ''Julius Ceasar'' and ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.
* ''[[A Great and Terrible Beauty]]'' and it's sequels each begin with excerpts from poems, namely "The Lady of Shalott" in the first book, ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' and "A Dream Within a Dream" in the second and "The Rose of Battle" in the third.
* ''[[Lamb: The
** As do the sections/ parts of ''[[Practical Demonkeeping]]'', ''[[The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove]]'' and ''[[A Dirty Job]]'', all by the same author, [[Christopher Moore]].
*** ''Fool'' has quotes from ''[[King Lear]]'' at the beginning for each chapter. It makes sense because the book is a retelling of the story.
* Most chapters of ''[[American Gods]]'' start with one, often foreshadowing later events in the chapters. They range from [[Robert Frost]] to [[E. E. Cummings|e. e. cummings]], [[Stephen Sondheim|Sondheim]] to [[Tom Waits]].
* Perhaps in deference to the opening quote, Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, ''[[The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao]]'' takes its epigraph from ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' #49, penned by Stan Lee.
* [[Philip Pullman]]'s ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' makes use of this trope in two of its installments: ''The Golden Compass/Northern Lights'' begins with a quote from ''Paradise Lost,'' and ''The Amber Spyglass,'' along with giving almost every chapter a short quote, uses Walt Whitman's ''America, a Prophecy'' and two other poems to set a very poignant mood. Less seriously, ''Spring-Heeled Jack'' starts off every chapter with quotes, including chestnuts such as "It was a dark and stormy night" and "Meanwhile, back at the ranch...."
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* Ann Radcliffe's novel ''The Italian'' quotes several works of [[Shakespeare]], lines from Milton's ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' and other writing from before her time, making this [[Older Than Radio]].
* ''[[Don Quixote]]'' begins with a note from the author, explaining that he despaired of finding a suitable epigraph for the book, until his friend suggested [[Subverted Trope|making shit up]].
*
* Robert B. Parker's ''[[Spenser]]'' novels with [[Literary Allusion Title]]s often began with an epigraph containing the relevant portion of the poem invoked by the title.
* Cornelia Funke begins each chapter of all three of her ''[[Inkheart]]'' novels with quotes from numerous other works of literature that hint at or relate to the plot of the chapter, including everything from ''[[The Princess Bride (novel)|The Princess Bride]]'' to [[Salman Rushdie]].
* Mary Janice Davidson opens every one of her books with three to four epigrahs. Of these, two are serious and the last one is outright silly. (In the ''[[Betsy the Vampire Queen]]'' books, the last one is usually Betsy herself.
* Carl Sagan's novel ''[[Contact (Literature)|Contact]]'' has so many quotes at the beginning of the parts and chapters that it looks like an anthology of quotations.
* Studs Terkel's collection of interviews, ''Working,'' begins with four quotations on the subject of working, from the Bible to a Nixon speech and an ad.
* Parodied in Robert Asprin's ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' series, which includes gag quotes attributed to famous real or fictional characters. Most are invented ("In times of crisis, it is of utmost importance not to lose one's head." -- M. Antoinette), but occasionally a legitimate quote is used to preface a chapter whose contents make it funny in context.
** Russian [[Alternate History]] novel writer Vladimir Sverzhin does exactly the same thing (such as musings on running being good for your health attributed to the original [[Almost-Dead Guy|Marathon Runner]]).
* ''[[The Master and Margarita]]'' begins with a highly appropriate quote from Goethe's Faust:
{{quote|"I am part of that force which wills forever evil and works forever good." }}
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* Fictional examples are used in ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]'', ranging from newspaper articles and quotes by Solomon Short (a newspaper columnist) in the first two books, limericks in the third book, and quotes from ''[[Encyclopedia Exposita|The Red Book]]'' in the fourth.
* Each chapter of ''[[The Club Dumas]]'' begins with a different quote, several of which come from [[Alexandre Dumas]]'s works. Interestingly, the well-read will see [[Agatha Christie|chapter five's quote]] and [[Meta Fiction|will logically come to an early conclusion about who is the]] [[Big Bad]]. {{spoiler|This is a [[Red Herring]] that the supposed [[Big Bad]] will later call the reader out on.}}
* ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Luke Skywalker
* [[Mark Twain]]'s ''Pudd'nhead Wilson'' begins every chapter with two quotes from "The Calendar of Pudd'nhead Wilson."
* J. Fenimore Cooper's ''[[The Last of the Mohicans]]''
* Chinua Achebe's ''[[Things Fall Apart]]'' famously takes its title from [[William Butler Yeats]]' "[[The Second Coming]];" the stanza containing the "things fall apart" line is quoted as the epigraph.
* ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]'', being a historical novel about a famous Russian poet and polyglot, has short relevant lines from poems or songs in different languages at the beginning of every chapter but the last (by which point he [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|dies]]).
* Chapters from the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]''
* Two of Ken Kesey's novels are prefaced with quotes that each book's title came from. ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
* Gerald Durrell does this at the beginning of every chapter in some of his books.
* In the war novels by [[Sven Hassel]], every chapter begins with a short section of prose, often unrelated to the novel but showing events in the wider war.
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* ''A Darkling Plain'', the last book in the ''[[Mortal Engines]]'' quartet, has the last stanza of Matthew Arnold's ''Dover Beach'' as its epigraph.
* [[Rudyard Kipling]] frequently supplemented an epigraph to both poetry and prose, up to a short poem before a novel. Some of these either add a twist or are plainly ironic when compared to the text.
* The [[Novelisation]] of the decidedly camp and blockbuster [[The Avengers (1998 film)|
* [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s "[[The Three-
== [[Music]] ==▼
* Several of [[Doctor Steel]]'s songs have epigraphs, some sampled from old Public Service Announcements such as "Duck and Cover", others deliberately done as a parody of such announcements.▼
* Ralph Vaughan Williams's ''Sinfonia Antartica'' has quotations preceding each of its five movements. These are sometimes recited. (Which is wrong, because the composer explicitly instructed that they should be printed in the programme to be read silently by the listeners, and because recitation destroys the ''attacca'' transition into the fourth movement.)▼
* ''[[Broken Saints]]'' has an apropos quote at the beginning ''and'' end of each of the 24 chapters. The exception is in Chapter 24, which also has one at the beginning of each act.▼
* ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'' uses quotes from the [[Ha Gakure]].▼
▲* [[Fanfic]] writers often preface chapters with quotes [[Song Fic|from their favourite songs]]. In some cases the song has little to do with the actual contents of the fic, and is simply what the writer happened to be listening at the moment.
* [[Stray]] has one for most of its chapters. A variation on [[Arc Words|"What can change the nature of a man?"]] from ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' is the most common, but the story also uses quotes from ''The Waste Land,'' ''Evangelion,'' and other works.▼
* The chapters from [[Robert J Defendi]]'s [[Podiobook]] ''[[Death By Cliche]]'' are all prefaced by gag quotes attributed to the author, often [[Self-Deprecation|mocking the action of the chapter they precede]], (particularly those with many [[Said Bookism|SaidBookisms]]), or complaining about having to do so many chapter quotes.▼
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' usually begins and ends with an epigraph read by whichever character the episode focuses on.
* Each ''[[Andromeda]]'' episode begins with a (fictional) quote.
* The first episode of ''[[Darkplace]]'' cuts to a King Lear quote about 5 minutes in. In the middle of a scene. For no reason.
* ''[[Iron Chef]]'' always begins with a quote from French epicurean Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
* The main character in ''[[The Invisible Man (TV series)|The Invisible Man]]'' starts every episode with a famous quote, usually foreshadowing the episode's plot.
** One episode had Darien narrating a flashback and starting it off with a quote, causing the listener to stop him ask him about his quoting.
▲* Several of [[Doctor Steel]]'s songs have epigraphs, some sampled from old Public Service Announcements such as "Duck and Cover", others deliberately done as a parody of such announcements.
▲== [[Manga]] ==
▲* Ralph Vaughan Williams's ''Sinfonia Antartica'' has quotations preceding each of its five movements. These are sometimes recited. (Which is wrong, because the composer explicitly instructed that they should be printed in the programme to be read silently by the listeners, and because recitation destroys the ''attacca'' transition into the fourth movement.)
▲* ''[[Bleach]]'' starts each tankubon (bound volume) with a small illustration of a character and a short poem that seems to be written in the voice of that character. And Kubo Tite's poetry is surprisingly ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090615193737/http://halcyonjazz.livejournal.com/103520.html good]''.
▲* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' is epigraphed by a passage from Revelation which coincides with the plot.
== [[Theatre]] ==
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** And part two, ''Perestroika'', begins with this one:
{{quote|Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole."|Ralph Waldo Emerson, "On Art"}}
* This wiki, [[All the Tropes? More Like All the Quotes!|far too many times]].▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* The ''[[Total War]]'' series tends to feature epigraphs in its loading screens.
* Every time you boot up an ''[[X Universe]]'' game, you're treated to a quote from somebody like [[Arthur C. Clarke]] or [[Albert Einstein]].
▲* ''[[Broken Saints]]'' has an apropos quote at the beginning ''and'' end of each of the 24 chapters. The exception is in Chapter 24, which also has one at the beginning of each act.
▲* ''[[Stray]]'' has one for most of its chapters. A variation on [[Arc Words|"What can change the nature of a man?"]] from ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' is the most common, but the story also uses quotes from ''The Waste Land,'' ''Evangelion,'' and other works.
▲* The chapters from
▲* This wiki, [[All the Tropes? More Like All the Quotes!|far too many times]].
{{reflist}}
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