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35-539: Sébastien-Roch Nicolas , known in his adult life as Nicolas Chamfort and as Sébastien Nicolas de Chamfort ( French: [ʃɑ̃fɔʁ] ; 6 April 1741 – 13 April 1794), was a French writer, best known for his epigrams and aphorisms . He was secretary to Louis XVI 's sister, and of the Jacobin club . There are two birth certificates for Chamfort. The first, from Saint-Genès parish in Clermont-Ferrand ,

70-611: A couplet . Since 1600, the couplet has been featured as a part of the longer sonnet form, most notably in William Shakespeare 's sonnets. Sonnet 76 is an example. The two-line poetic form as a closed couplet was also used by William Blake in his poem " Auguries of Innocence ", and also by Byron in his poem Don Juan , by John Gay in his fables, and by Alexander Pope in his An Essay on Man . The first work of English literature penned in North America

105-572: A doublesided page. A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it, but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long. Poets known for their epigrams whose work has been lost include Cornificia . In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb , especially in the translations of the Bible and the Greek and Roman poets . Two successive lines of verse that rhyme with each other are known as

140-576: A free man rather than to be brought (again) as a slave in a prison" ) which he signed in a firm hand. His butler found him unconscious in a pool of blood. From then until his death in Paris the following year, he suffered intensely and was attended to by a gendarme , whom he paid a crown a day. To the Abbé Sieyès Chamfort had given fortune in the title of a pamphlet ( Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-État ? Tout. Qu'a-t-il ? Rien ), and Sieyès

175-550: A less educated person. Its content makes it clear how popular such poems were: Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas. I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins, since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets. However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus , whose collection Cicuta (now lost)

210-430: A razor, but failed to cut an artery. He finally used the razor to stab himself in the chest and to cut his own hocks, aiming at the veins. He dictated to those who came to arrest him the well-known declaration Moi, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, déclare avoir voulu mourir en homme libre plutôt que d'être reconduit en esclave dans une maison d'arrêt ( "I, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, hereby declare my wish to die

245-495: A residual pressure to keep things concise , even when they were recited in Hellenistic times. Many of the characteristic types of literary epigram look back to inscriptional contexts, particularly funerary epigram, which in the Hellenistic era becomes a literary exercise. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic and funerary elements – they tell their readers (or listeners) to drink and live for today because life

280-589: A street orator and was among the first to enter the Bastille when it was stormed. Until 3 August 1791 he was secretary of the Jacobin club . He worked for the Mercure de France , collaborated with Pierre-Louis Ginguené in the Feuille villageoise , and drew up for Talleyrand his Addresse au peuple français . With the reign of Marat and Robespierre , he became critical of uncompromising Jacobinism , and with

315-565: A time with M. de Narbonne, then returned to Paris where he was elected in 1781 to the Académie française. He was a member of the Masonic lodge Les Neuf Sœurs . In 1784, through the influence of Calonne , he became secretary to the king's sister, Madame Élisabeth , and in 1786 he received a pension of 2000 livres from the royal treasury. He was thus once more attached to the court, and made friends there despite his satirical attitude. He quit

350-471: A title for the couplet, as is shown in Sonnet VIII of the sequence. During the early 20th century, the rhymed epigram couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line. Adelaide Crapsey codified the couplet form into a two-line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees , first published in 1915. By

385-550: A year he resigned his post in the prince's household and retired to Auteuil . There, comparing the authors of old with his contemporaries, he composed a famous mot that proclaims the superiority of the dead over the living as companions. He fell in love with and married a lady attached to the household of the duchesse du Maine; she was 48 years old, clever, amusing, and a woman of the world. They soon moved to Vaucouleurs, where she died within six months. Chamfort lived in Holland for

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420-659: Is considered to be the master of the Latin epigram. His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77): Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus. Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis, sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis. Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned Pedo often stretches out over

455-436: Is short. Generally, any theme found in classical elegies could be and were adapted for later literary epigrams. Hellenistic epigrams are also thought of as having a "point" – that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist. By no means do all Greek epigrams behave this way; many are simply descriptive, but Meleager of Gadara and Philippus of Thessalonica , the first comprehensive anthologists, preferred

490-884: The Hellenistic period through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity into the compiler's own Byzantine era – a thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. The Anthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous homosexual epigrams called the Μοῦσα Παιδικἠ ( Mousa Paidike , "The Boyish Muse"). Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were often more satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffiti , such as this one from Pompeii , which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by

525-476: The 1930s, the five-line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar . These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey . J. V. Cunningham was also a noted writer of epigrams (a medium suited to a "short-breathed" person). Les Neuf S%C5%93urs Too Many Requests If you report this error to

560-456: The Spartans, passersby..." . These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse . Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period , probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams. Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and

595-805: The advantage of richness of colour, picturesqueness of phrase, passion, and audacity. Sainte-Beuve compares them to well-minted coins that retain their value, and to keen arrows that arrivent brusquement et sifflent encore . Although situated at the exact opposite of the political spectrum (see French Revolution ) the maxims of Antoine de Rivarol are among those that easily compare in acidity and brilliance. Epigram The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages , which typically do not show those qualities. The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuaries – including statues of athletes – and on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to

630-443: The capital city of Auvergne , says he was born there on 6 April 1741, the son of a grocer with the surname of Nicolas, and that he was given the name "Sébastien-Roch", so that his full name was Sébastien-Roch Nicolas . But a second birth certificate gives him the name "Sébastien Roch" and says he was born on 22 June, of "unknown parents", and some scholars argue that he was not born but baptized on that day. Local tradition said that he

665-586: The court for good after an unfortunate and mysterious love affair, and was taken into the house of M. de Vaudreuil. Here, in 1783, he met Honoré Mirabeau , with whom he remained steadfast friends, whom he assisted with money and influence, and at least one of whose speeches he wrote. The outbreak of the French Revolution profoundly changed Chamfort's life. He threw himself into the republican movement, forgetting his old friends at court and devoting his small fortune to revolutionary propaganda. He became

700-439: The divide between "epigram" and " elegy " is sometimes indistinct (they share a characteristic metre , elegiac couplets ). In the classical period , the clear distinction between them was that epigrams were inscribed and meant to be read, while elegies were recited and meant to be heard. Some elegies could be quite short, but only public epigrams were longer than ten lines. All the same, the origin of epigram in inscription exerted

735-485: The duchesse de Grammont, sister of Choiseul , through whose influence he was introduced at court. In 1776, his tragedy, Mustapha et Zeangir , was played at Fontainebleau before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette . Subsequently, the king gave him a further pension of 1200 livres and his cousin, the Prince de Condé , made him his secretary. Disliking the constraints of court life, he became increasingly discontented, and after

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770-618: The fall of the Girondins his political life came to an end. But he could not restrain the tongue that had made him famous; he no more spared the Convention than he had spared the court. His notorious republicanism failed to excuse the sarcasms he lavished on the new order of things. Fingered by an assistant in the Bibliothèque Nationale, to a share in the direction of which he had been appointed by Jean Marie Roland , he

805-577: The genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of "satura", hexameter satire , as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal . Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as the Milan Papyrus now indicates. A major source for Greek literary epigram is the Greek Anthology , a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections, including those of Meleager and Philippus. It contains epigrams ranging from

840-521: The guise of Adonis " (Hercule]] sous la figure d'Adonis) – he lived so hard that he was glad to have the opportunity for a rest cure in the town of Spa when the Belgian minister in Paris, M. van Eyck, invited him to accompany him to Germany in 1761. On his return to Paris, Chamfort produced a successful comedy, The Young Indian Girl (La Jeune Indienne, 1764), following it with a series of epistles in verse, essays and odes. However, his literary reputation

875-603: The little I still know, I guessed" (" Ce que j'ai appris je ne le sais plus; le peu que je sais encore, je l'ai deviné. ") He was a brilliant though dreamy student. When the principal of the college promised him a stipend, he replied that he could not accept because he preferred honour to honours: " J'aime l'honneur et non-les honneurs ". Upon graduation he assumed the name of Chamfort. For some time he subsisted by teaching and hack writing . His good looks and ready wit brought him attention; but, though endowed with immense physical strength – Madame de Craon called him " Hercules under

910-489: The most brilliant and suggestive sayings of the modern era. His aphorisms, less systematic and psychologically less important than those of La Rochefoucauld, are as significant in their violence and iconoclastic spirit of the period of storm and preparation that gave them birth as the Réflexions in their exquisite restraint and elaborate subtlety are characteristic of the tranquil elegance of their epoch. Moreover, they have

945-435: The prolific American poet Emily Dickinson . Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelist George Eliot also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled Brother and Sister in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnet ends with a couplet. In her sonnets, the preceding lead-in-line, to the couplet ending of each, could be thought of as

980-507: The road to fame and fortune, when illness struck. A generous friend gave him a pension of 1200 livres , charged on the Mercure de France . Thus assisted, he was able to go to the baths of Contrexéville and to spend some time in the country, where he wrote an Eloge on La Fontaine which won the prize of the Academy of Marseilles in 1774. In 1775, while taking the waters at Barges, he met

1015-527: The short and witty epigram. Since their collections helped form knowledge of the genre in Rome and then later throughout Europe, Epigram came to be associated with 'point', especially because the European epigram tradition takes the Latin poet Martial as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius and Nicarchus ) selectively and in the process redefined

1050-412: Was Robert Hayman 's Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland , which is a collection of over 300 epigrams, many of which do not conform to the two-line rule or trend. While the collection was written between 1618 and 1628 in what is now Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, it was published shortly after his return to Britain. In Victorian times the epigram couplet was often used by

1085-544: Was likewise the person to whom he told his famous sarcastic bon mot Ah ! mon ami, je m'en vais enfin de ce monde, où il faut que le cœur se brise ou se bronze (And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead.) Thus the maker of constitutions followed the dead wit to the grave. The writings of Chamfort include comedies, political articles, literary criticisms, portraits, letters, and verses. His Maximes et Pensées , highly praised by John Stuart Mill , are, after those of La Rochefoucauld , among

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1120-500: Was named after the poisonous plant Cicuta for its biting wit, and Lucan , more famous for his epic Pharsalia . Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus , who wrote both invectives and love epigrams – his poem 85 is one of the latter. Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior. I hate and I love. Maybe you'd like to know why I do? I don't know, but I feel it happening, and I am tormented. Martial , however,

1155-506: Was not established until 1769, when the Académie française awarded him a prize for his Eloge on Molière . Until then, he lived from hand to mouth, mainly on the hospitality of people who gave him board and lodging in exchange for the pleasure of the conversation for which he was famous. Madame Helvétius entertained him at Sèvres for some years. In 1770, another comedy, Le Marchand de Smyrne , brought him further notice, and he seemed on

1190-571: Was taken to the prison des Madelonnettes . Soon after his release, he was threatened again with arrest, but he decided that death was preferable to a repetition of the moral and physical restraint to which he had been subjected. Unable to tolerate the prospect of being imprisoned once more, in September 1793 he locked himself into his office and shot himself in the face. The pistol malfunctioned and he did not die even though he shot off his nose and his right eye. He then repeatedly stabbed his neck with

1225-507: Was the love child of an aristocratic woman, Jacqueline de Montrodeix (née Cisternes de Vinzelles), and of a clergyman named Pierre Nicolas; and that he was then given for adoption to the grocer, who was a relative of the biological father. At the age of nine he was sent to Paris to study as a scholarship student at the Collège des Grassins . He worked hard, although one of his most contemptuous epigrams reads: "What I learned I no longer know;

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