David Zapatka
In the Quest magazine article titled “The Lotus-Born of Ancient Egypt, A Legacy for Enlightenment in Egypt’s Megalithic Sites,” author Foteini Fotoula Adrimi used an epigraph to introduce her article. The epigraph read:
O Atum-Beetle!
You become high as the hill;
You rose as the benben
In the Benben Compound
In Heliopolis. (Allen, 265)
This epigraph connects the creator god Atum to the sacred primeval mound in https://degrees.asu.edu/checksheet/2026/CNU/NUNURDBSN/NURPBBSNHeliopolis. The text refers to Atum-Khepri, linking the rising sun god and the scarab beetle of rebirth to the holy Benben stone in the ancient temple compound.
Epigraph—ep·i·graph e-pə-graf noun 1. a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme 2. an engraved inscription
Etymology—borrowed from Greek epigraphḗ “act of inscribing, inscription,” noun of action from epigráphein “to mark the surface of, graze, scratch a mark on, inscribe”
First Known Use—1624
An epigraph is a short quotation, phrase, or poem placed at the beginning of another piece of writing to encapsulate that work’s main themes and to set the tone. For instance, the epigraph of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost and establishes the book’s main theme (i.e., the relationship of contempt between creators and their creations): “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me Man, did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote me?”
Not all works have epigraphs. Most don’t. Epigraphs are most common in longer works, like novels and books of poetry. Some writers love epigraphs so much they put them at the beginning of each chapter. Some books have more than one epigraph, placing two or more quotations in dialogue with one another.
The relationship between the epigraph and the rest of the text is not always 100% clear, since the author never, or very rarely, explains the significance of their epigraph outright. For that reason, it’s up to the reader to determine what the epigraph “means” in relation to the text, which is typically only possible after they’ve finished reading the entire work, since it’s only then that all the work’s themes can be fully understood. Epigraphs can be thought of as the reader’s first hint as to the themes of the work they’re about to read.
Epigraph used in a sentence:
The novel begins with an epigraph from the Book of Job that hints at the main character’s struggles.
Visitors stopped to read the old epigraph carved into the stone above the library doors.
Each chapter opened with a brief epigraph to set a mysterious mood.
Epigraph used on the web:
An epigraph offers an observation from Shakespeare’s time—that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were considered interchangeable.—David Sims, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2025
That Blake couplet in the epigraph above runs through my head.—B. R. Cohen, Longreads, 13 Jan. 2026
Please submit any word you may like to share along with your insights and comments to dzapatka@wbhsi.net.