“What, is that supposed to be an epigram

#19, November 23, 2003

Of Epigrammatology

Introduction

“What, is that supposed to be an epigram?” Pavel Petrovich remarked in a questioning tone and walked away.

– Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Children.

My epigrams are no sideshow. Provoking a chuckle sometimes, they are no laughing matter. Were they to be, then they would warrant W. Somerset Maugham’s dismissal of them as “mechanical appliance[s] by which the dull achieve a semblance of wit” (hey! I could use that as an epigram) [1] Epigrams are an important part of my writing, and I continue to add them to my text because they contribute some perspective, even if it is only as a result of their sheer incongruity. They are not supposed to reflect the text that follows them, nor are they bounded by it. Authored by others, they can only be turned to my purpose in an incomplete fashion; there is always some slippage from which a dialogue of sorts may emerge. In addition, the quotes are (even if only in so slight a fashion) transformed in their use as epigrams in my work. Their authors could or would not have conceived of them being uttered in such a conversation as those engaged in my work, and after their utterance (in conjunction with the essay that follows them) the epigrams may provoke new thoughts and so be created anew.

I first acquired an interest in epigrams as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University. My advisor and American History professor, Owen Dudley Edwards, was a scholar of Oscar Wilde and had become fascinated by his epigrams (or “fireworks”) as he called them. Partly as a result of this, I imagine, Edwards had developed a unique method of examination for his students. Instead of asking questions that would assume that a definite or precise answer was required, he provided a choice among numerous epigram pairings. Each student was required to write three essays, one for each of the pairs he or she had chosen. This was quite daunting a prospect, but certainly once the exam was underway it allowed one to free associate and deploy all that one had learned while developing new ways of looking at some old topics. It seems to me, in retrospect, that while in my other final exams I had been continually excluding material that didn’t fit with an answer to the particular question that had been asked, in my responses on Progressivism (the topic in question) I had been pulling in almost all the material with which I had familiarized myself.

I remember the night before the exam that a friend and I went for a beer with Edwards at the University faculty club. At some point, I indicated that I needed to go to “revise” for the following morning’s exam. His response surprised me at the time, but I think it was exactly right. I wouldn’t be helping myself by doing this, he said, since I needed to be thinking creatively rather than trying to cram facts into my head. My friend and I took this advice, went out on the town, and, as I recall, I turned up late to the exam because I had overslept. Nonetheless, I am sure that I did pretty well, though the only thing that I now recall is somehow quoting thirty lines from Ezra Pound’s “Homage to Sextus Propertius.” I am not sure how that was relevant!

After that I pretty much forgot about epigrams until I came to work on my dissertation. At the time I was struggling to decide what to work on, though I had done a fair amount of research on African Methodists in Philadelphia. It was only when I came upon a comment by a Philadelphia minister that I suddenly found that I had a thesis. I did not use the comment as an epigram as such, but instead made it the basis for the title of the book itself – Sparks from the Anvil of Oppression. When it came time to publish the book I started inserting epigrams, though pretty conservative ones (very much to the point), at the head of each chapter. Then, I began to think about the epigrams themselves and recognized that they could be seen almost as countertexts, speaking to, against, and in parallel with the text that ensued. Once I began to see their potential, I began to go in search of them (though almost subconsciously at first), until like a surfer searching the globe for the perfect wave, I was seeking them out in some curious places.

This section of Histrionics (“Of Epigrammatology” – with apologies to Derrida!) describes some of the thinking behind the epigrams that I have used. Here I am endeavoring to explain why they “fit”, and, on occasion, suggesting reasons why it was that I felt I should be using something that didn’t “fit”.