What is an epigraph and how should it be formatted?

Before you start writing a novel of the century or a simple story, you should find out what an epigraph is. This word is a short text, an utterance or a quotation that precedes a piece or a part of it.

Usually the epigraph expresses the essence of the writer's creative intent, the main idea of the work and, of course, informs the reader of the main theme of the author's work, as well as his mood. Knowing what an epigraph is, the creator has an excellent opportunity to tune the reader to the right mood right away, only the first page of his work opens.

Sometimes the epigraph characterizes the characters of the text or gives an overall picture of the storyline. There are epigraphs to the whole work, and there are to one separately taken chapter.

Some on the question of what an epigraph is, say that this is a quatrain. However, today some authors use for this not only poems, but also short anecdotes "in the subject". This plays the role of a small respite in modern tutorials, textbooks, encyclopedias, where the reader is offered a rather difficult material for perception.

For example, in a self-instruction manual for beginners, a personal computer before the chapter about the drive is put an anecdote about a blonde who calls the customer service with a complaint that she broke the "stand for coffee" - is not pushed. He on the one hand gives a mood on the topic of the chapter, and on the other - slightly dilutes the humor of the seriousness of the material. Just like good teachers in lectures!

To gain a deeper understanding of what an epigraph is, one should look into the "past life" of this word. It turns out that it had an interesting story. After all, its first meaning was the "tombstone". Hence the related word "epitaph" was born.

Probably the main feature of the epigraph is the fact that the short phrase should contain a maximum of meaning and content, just as in the epitaph a very deep thought is expressed in just a few words.

The first epigraphs appeared in the Renaissance, however, they were firmly rooted only in the period of Romanticism. Today it is already difficult to find a work of art, wherever they are applied.

The design of the epigraph has its own rules, which should be known to all who decided to use it in their work. As a rule, it is made without quotation marks on the right side of the sheet. Do not put the name of the author in parentheses, the point after them is also missing.

Type it in a font several sizes smaller than the main text, sometimes italicized an italic. Making it the same in a foreign language, next to which is his translation, differs from the usual. After all, to type the text of the original and the translation you need different outlines of the same font and size. It is also important to separate them with a blank space.

In the epigraph, the quoted quotation should accurately reproduce the quoted text, unchanged. The punctuation marks in the quotation should be placed in the same way as in the author's text. If only a fragment of the passage is cited, then the ellipsis is placed according to the rules at the place of the pass. Also in the phrase, which is not written from the beginning, an ellipsis is put.

All stitches should be approximately the same length. Very often in art texts with good design, the epigraph to the entire book is placed on a separate odd page, following the title page. When using the same for each chapter, they are placed after their name or number.

One should also remember some of the axioms of using epigraphs.

1. The poetic text should never be re-told in your own words!

2. As for the rules of punctuation in prose works, it must completely coincide with punctuation marks in direct speech.