Fictional Epigrams: But Are They Poetry?

In all of this need be no fear
for all moves as it has this seven month.

Lior Rhonh in Searhawk Mountain (Anaysavaskara), Act II, scene ii
The Udhivaean equivalent of Shakespeare's Macbeth's "I will not be afraid of death and bane,/ 'Til Birnam forest come to Dunsinane" (V.iii.59-60) -- the height of hubris. The aey speaking this line is about to be overthrown by an unforeseen strategy.

Armed as she is with aunties
who would teach her the all of womanhood.

Lior Rhonh's Parfyghyd ("The All of Womanhood"). Parodized by Alaf Mor, replacing "womanhood" with "widowhood" in a piece extolling murder of "excessive" spouses.


Commentary:

Epigrams and aphorisms have always fascinated me. The epigrams at each chapter heading in Frank Herbert's Dune were sufficient to carry me through that sometimes dry work. But epigrams themselves are fascinating. The sayings from Poor Richard's Almanack come immediately to mind: "He who drinks his ale alone / Let him catch his horse alone".

I find myself constantly referencing wise sayings, which may be something of a sign of weakness of thought. On the other hand, it is I who determines when the saying relates to the circumstance. And having a ready supply of wise sayings prepares one to cope with situations, one hopes, better than one would without.

Sometimes I have challenged my students to write some aphorisms as part either of a philosophy course or of a verbal communications course.

The first of the above epigrams from "Lior Rhonh" is an example of attempts at re-contextualizing in a secondary world wisdom from this primary world. So, in a world in which Birnam does not exist and the lopping of tree-limbs would be a most extreme stratagem, what might be an equivalent of Macbeth's lines?

The second works in the same vein overall but is an attempt more specifically to build a possible situation -- in the initial instance quite serious, but then parodized -- in a culture (paralleled by several traditional ones in our primary world) in which women have a leading role, and in which young women are guided in their education not by extra-familial institutions, but by an extended community of women elders.

Part of my fascination with epigrams is the way that they can be "unpacked": they are like mantras or seeds: all the genetic material is present in them to be something extensive, but it is in a very compressed form.

Now to the question in the title line: Are they Poetry?

Well, they are certainly compressed, so they may fit the "intensity" test, using LeGuin's definition of poetry. The degree of "pattern" they exhibit is harder to say. On that count, we might suppose that these are not poems.

The are intended to be taken as fragments of larger pieces. That those larger pieces do not exist is no obstacle to the imagination. Just as a potsherd can suggest any number of possible forms, so can these bits. If they are taken as fragments, how can we proceed to reconstruct?

I think we could fare as well or better with these than with what we have of Sappho.