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GCSE English Literature · key term
A quotation placed before a literary work that helps frame its ideas.
Used by Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas
Paper 2
A quotation placed before a literary work to introduce ideas or guide the reader’s expectations.
Revise: ContextThe novel begins with an epigraph, a quotation placed before the story.
A quotation placed before a literary work to introduce ideas or expectations that help frame its reading.
A quotation placed before a literary work to introduce an idea or perspective relevant to it.
Paper 2
Revise: The PerseveranceBefore the poem begins, an epigraph attributed to Peter Tosh connects love with the ‘man overstanding’. ‘Overstanding’ is a Rastafarian term for understanding beyond the surface, or seeing the bigger picture with strength and respect. It prepares us for a poem that does not simply condemn the father.
Component 2
A quotation placed before a literary work to suggest ideas through which readers might understand it.
Revise: ContextAn epigraph is a quotation placed before a work to guide readers’ expectations. Eliot’s epigraph comes from Wordsworth’s Michael, first published in 1800, a poem about an ageing shepherd and his beloved son.
A short quotation placed before a work to suggest its themes or guide readers’ expectations.
Link methods to their effects, and use literary context, such as the elegy and Rilke’s epigraph, to illuminate particular details.
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