epigraph

short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book, chapter or article (use Q3589144 for inscription on an object)

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Commons category: Epigraphs in literature

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Facsimile of the original title page for William Congreve's The Way of the World published in 1700, on which the epigraph from Horace's Satires can be seen in the bottom quarter.

In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section or chapter thereof. The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context.