Reading Inscriptions in Literary Epigram

Abstract

Chapter 2 argues that literary epigrams that represent the process of reading an inscription provide evidence for the reading of inscribed epigrams in pre-Hellenistic times. Epigrams of all periods ‘project’ readings (and viewings): composers imagined reading as a speech situation in front of the inscribed object, and they wrote features of that situation into the text so as to fit or guide future readings. Two such features are deixis construed to fit vocal readings and description of the object intended to guide viewers’ responses, thus a projection of reading that complements viewing. This chapter examines deixis (first-person and dialogic) and description (ecphrastic dialogues and lists of dedicated objects) in literary epigrams that represent the projection of reading as successful, that is, an inscription being read. The chapter argues that, in comparable ways, formally similar projections in older inscribed epigram were meant to, and regularly did, fit or guide reading.