Author Description

Language and style of epigram is a topic scarcely discussed in the related bibliography. This edition aspires to fill the gap by offering an in-depth study of dialect, diction, and style in Greek literary and inscribed epigram in a collection of twenty-one contributions authored by international scholars. The authors explore the epigrammatic Kunstsprache and matters of dialectical variation, the interchange between poetic and colloquial vocabulary, the employment of hapax legomena, the formalistic uses of the epigrammatic discourse (meter, syntactical patterns, arrangement of words, riddles), the various categories of style in sepulchral, philosophical and pastoral contexts of literary epigrams, and the idiosyncratic diction of inscriptions. This is a book intended for classicists who want to review the connection between the stylistic features of epigram and its interpretation, as well as for scholars keen to understand how rhetoric and linguistics can be used as a heuristic tool for the study of literature.