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Epigraph means generally the beginning part of a literary text, a short phase (Hornby, 2010,502). An author’s short directions and messages relative to the reader at the beginning of the chapter. The usage of epigraph in literature is widespread with romanticism. It is used for indicating another works, comparisons, and foreshadowing about text’s topic, sometimes it is used to remind something, sometimes to do irony. It can be used to prepare the reader for the text to be read, for the theme, the writer creates a hunch in the reader and increases enthusiasm, so the epigraph is welcome for the reader.
Thomas Stearns Eliot who is an English poet, play-writer and critic writes famous long poems that dives into consciousness. Modernist texts are full of allusions, there is many references to other works. He was greatly influenced by Ezra Pound, symbolic French poets ,and Dante. He studied Indian philosophy at Harvard and gave a thesis on philosophy He uses epigraphs in his poems generally with different functions.
One of his famous poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” begins with an epigraph. In the epigraph T. S. Eliot gives his readers a summary, it gives a sense of foreboding about what it is about. It is taken from Dante’s Divine Comedy(Praz,1936). He calls his work as a comedy which means salvation. Salvation comes from when you realize you are nothing but weaknesses. The character of Dante, Guido da Montefeltro, seeks a way of how should he find eternal heaven. He is eternally punished, he stuck in purgatory. This quote speaks of the eternal flame, fear of being in limbo. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Eliot portrays a modern man through Prufrock, therefore he uses repetitive lines to show us purgatory;
The room where women talk about art is the place of purgatory. Women feel risky and they come back there. Throughout the poem, Prufrock is portrayed as a repetitive, obsessive person who avoids asking big questions so Prufrock lives the same way with Guido in the modern world. It questions the moral values of society. Dante sometimes talks about the corruption of the land like Eliot does. Therefore, this quote gives us reflections of the situations in which he has never been able to escape his mind.
“Gerontion” which is written by T. S. Eliot is a dramatic monologue about an elderly man who lived in the 19th century. Gerontion is an any old man, and in the character of this elderly man, there is a complexity of individuals and humanity (Shrestha,2017). The poem describes Europe during the Second World War. It begins with an epigraph from Shakespeare’s play, Measure for Measure;
“Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both.”
(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act III, scene i, 11. 32)
Shakespeare tells us here that we can enjoy neither youth nor old age, understand the pleasure of that moment, and then we dream of those times. Even with the first line of this quote, Eliot gives clues about poetry, the speaker is an aging man, theme ,and tone of the poem can be understood in the following lines of the epigraph because an old man who has lost his hope of living in this poem and his enthusiasm for rebirth can be seen. The old man symbolizes the decay of western society in this poem So, Eliot uses epigraph with the same function in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.
“The Hollow Men” is another poem which begins with an epigraph. The beginning line of the epigraph is taken from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the other line is an allusion to Guy Fawkes Day. This day is celebrated in England on November 5th, there are many references to Fawkes, who is against the parliament and arrested in the poem, the second line of this epigraph is a traditional saying by children who raise money for help on this day. In this work, Conrad’ s character Marlow tells his friends the hunter Kurtz, and describes it with the dark sides of humanity to avoid, with aspects such as violence and power, he just like dark souls in Star Wars. From here we can understand that the general tone of the book is rather gloomy and dark. When Marlow talks about Kurtz’s death, he compares it to other people’s perspectives, for Kurtz death is a heroic event like the rest of his life. Whereas the word hallow means blessed, “hallow men” means empty, null person. Like his other works that he shows corruptions, faith, lost soul, Eliot represents his love, his fear against God in this work, Captain Kurtz is a reflection of Eliot’s concerns for society. When talking about the end of the world in poetry, his helplessness is seen that there will be no turning back, eventually death and confrontation with God. So, in order to show his fear, he uses this epigraph.
“La Figlia Che Piange” is one of the most romantic works which includes one line long epigraph of T. S. Eliot. The title of the poem is Italian which means a girl who is weeping, so it can be said that Eliot was also affected by Picasso’s painting. Just like Picasso, Eliot conveys the image of the “weeping girl” in his mind to us in a different way. The epigraph which is taken from Virgil’s Aeneid, actually a question, is asked to the Venus, a Greek goddess. This question about how to call her as virgin is highly romantic, so the romantic mood of the epigraph gives us information about the tone of the poem we will read. The question reflects the poet’s uncertain emotions. Although at first glance this quotation has no relation with poem other than romanticism, it may be easier to relate it as it goes deep into poetry. The poem consists of talking about a girl who has just left a man, and each stanza has a different tone so maybe it can be related to the Dido myth. Even if the speaker suffers, he thinks this separation is the best choice, he can be compared to Aeneas with this determination and coolness. In another word, a girl who is mentioned in the poem has the same qualifications as Dido in the sense of romance and beauty. Eliot wants to reflect this romantic myth in his poetry through this epigraph because The speaker cannot forget the woman and the separation, although this separation seems to be the best way for them, it is a romantic love that he always thinks about what would happen otherwise.
In “Portrait of a Lady” by T. S. Eliot, the epigraph of the poem which is taken from Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta gives the poem the sense of double take, and that is the most understandable epigraph of the T.S. Eliot;
“Thou has committed
Fornication: but that was in another country
And besides, the wench is dead.”
(Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Act IV, scene i, 11. 4I-43)
The poem of Eliot is in accordance with the Marlowe text which was written in the 16th century. The play of Marlowe is about a Jew named Barabas. Living in Malta, Barabas is a Jew that admires its own wealth and is satisfied with the envy of Christians on the island. Turks coming to the island will bring the end of this wealth and Barabas. Eliot’s play something like repetition because there is also sexual sin, fault between an older lady and the male speaker. At the beginning of the epigraph, there are words like “wench” and “fornication”, but it doesn’t help about making a relationship with these words and “lady”. It prepares us how a “lady” that we will read, creates irony because these are not ladylike qualifications. Lady is confused, she only thinks about understand, she searches for the way of running away from her confusing just like Barabas who tries to away from his guilt. The hero questions how his mood would have happened if the woman died while he is in another nation towards the end of “Portrait of a Lady” (Worthington,1949).
As a result, Eliot, a poet who is appreciated with his important poems in his society and even after today, was influenced by important names just like other poets of his period. Therefore, he commonly uses epigraphs at the beginning of his works to create a hunch, sometimes to make irony, sometimes to summarize poems cleverly.
Work cited
- Burbidge, James.’. O Quam Te Memorem, Virgo? Interpreting Venus in Aeneid 1.314–417. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047444503_005 Web.
- Gelpi, Albert. A coherent Splendor Cambridge University Press (1987) p. 124
- Hornby, Albert Sidney, ‘Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary’, 8., Oxford University Press, 2010, pp.502
- Praz, Mario. ‘T.S Eliot and Dante.’ The Southern Review 2 (1936): 525.
- Shrestha, Roma. ‘Gerontion by T. S. Eliot: Critical Analysis.’ BachelorandMaster, 6 Oct. 2017, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/gerontion-critical-analysis.html.
- Worthington, Jane. ‘The Epigraphs to the Poetry of TS Eliot.’ American Literature 21.1 (1949): 1-17.
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