"But if the epigraph’s prevalence is a product of history, it also reflects the specific needs of our own literary moment. In “Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation,” the theorist Gérard Genette claims four basic functions for epigraphs. The first two are straightforward — an epigraph can comment on the title of a given work, or it can apply to the work’s body. But after that, matters get a little more “oblique,” as Genette diplomatically puts it. “Very often,” he says of the epigraph, “the main thing is not what it says but who its author is, plus the sense of indirect backing that its presence at the edge of a text gives rise to.” The point, then, isn’t Karl Marx’s wisdom, it’s “Karl Marx.”"
Interesting article on the prevalence of the epigraph. (Must remember to look up Genette article.) I'm in agreement with nearly all of what the author says, though he is more neutral (i.e. the insecurity of the epigraph can't be helped) and tends to underplay the role of poets wishing to appear intellectually chichi, Benjamin's presence saying nearly everything. The use of Stevens may be part of that chichi factor, too, his eminent "quotability" and, what the author doesn't note, his permanent influence on contemporary poets, that explains more. To be sure, there's something grandly aphoristic about Benjamin as well--even Wittgenstein--but it is the Karl Marx rule here that is most operative.
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