From the Editor’s Desk: Recycling Epigraphs?

An interesting style question materialized the other day that, on its face, seems to carry only a little significance. It was an idiosyncratic matter that may apply to only select manuscripts, but which I thought was also more broadly instructive for those writing historical non-fiction. The question involves quotations, specifically as chapter epigraphs, but it also opens up a broader discussion about how and when to use quotations in general in history writing.
 
An author with whom I have been working wanted to use a particular quotation both as a chapter epigraph and also repeated as a quotation later in the chapter. I pushed back and suggested recycling quotes in this way was not a good idea. The author insisted, however, and after an appeal to the publisher, I relented. One should always choose one’s battles, and in this case, the stakes were not high enough and the infraction not severe enough to ruffle an author’s feathers. So I let the repetition stand. It is not the end of the world, or of this book’s credibility (it is a really good book), to have the same quotation exist in two places, as I readily acknowledge. But I still maintain I am right in this instance, and that the matter is worth an extra thought.
 
An epigraph, you will recall, is a quotation, usually in full, placed at the beginning of a chapter as something of a literary appetizer or thematic soupçon. It is designed to whet the reader’s appetite, offer a pithy or engaging way to prepare a reader’s mind for the chapter, and, perhaps most importantly, propose a metonymical or allegorical indication of what the chapter’s theme is about. Indeed, it is the chapter theme in brief.
 
So what’s wrong with recycling the chapter’s theme as an ordinary quotation later in the chapter?

​The short answer is that any such repetition risks boring the reader. We are asking a reader to encounter the same stretch of prose twice in the same chapter. That is, one must acknowledge, just a little bit boring. Our goal is to offer prose that sparkles, amazes, delights, or intrigues (or stimulates, arouses, or even mesmerizes, if you want). No writer can achieve those ends all the time, but the repetition of prose (without further clarification or elaboration) clearly works in the other direction. In the interest of lively prose, we should recognize that repetition is probably a trifle boring.
 
But I think there is a more substantial foundation for my objection, and for that we need a brief digression into the use of quotations in general.
 
Why do we offer quotations in historical narratives? (I will address the how of quoting material in a later post.) There are several reasons for the practice. Certainly, many of the authors with whom I work want to signal their trustworthiness. The reader can trust this account, they are saying, because of the fulsome reliance on quotations, quotations that come directly from the primary sources themselves. Writers signal that they’ve done their research, and that the narrative they are conveying comes, as it were, straight from the horse’s mouth. This is an altogether worthy instinct, and the use of quotations to establish veracity is suitable, helpful, and worthy. It is, indeed, necessary.
 
Quoting in the service of veracity is both standard and good practice, but it must be attended with a note of caution. Overuse of quotations can be problematic. Writers ought to remember—some seem to forget—that the story they are telling is their story. They should be jealous of that prerogative, which means that they should surrender the valuable real estate of their own prose only with great hesitancy.
 
Many historical actors lie or misremember, and hence their own account is not always truthful. Of course there may be good reasons to preserve and present such lies in a narrative, so dishonesty is not an automatic disqualification. But what probably is an automatic disqualification is that, besides being liars, mis-rememberers, or obfuscators, many human beings are also boring! Why surrender the valuable real estate of your narrative to some other writer? Why let someone else elbow aside your lively, intriguing, and dynamic prose for their quotidian ramblings? Don’t do it!  
 
Many writers use quotation after quotation to signal veracity and truth-telling. But in truth, passage after passage of ordinary prose, even if it authentic, truthful, and real, can get in the way of a good story. It can be fatiguing for readers to remember who is doing the telling in a given passage. And it can also be boring: Just because a historical actor said something, doesn’t mean that that saying is the most intriguing way to present the material. In the military history I often edit, many writers feel obligated to present one quotation after another, which can make the narrative seem like a report on reports, which is no way to tell a rip-roaring good story.
 
Establish veracity with quotations, to be sure, but don’t let veracity encumber your story.
 
There is at least one other reason to use quotations, and that is to establish verisimilitude: a good quote can give specificity to a moment or an action. A quotation may offer color, may offer sight and sound, or a dose of period realism in a moment that a writer cannot. A particular turn of a historical actor’s phrase may be more elegant than how a writer would phrase the moment. To my mind (and eyes) this is a better reason to offer a quotation than one made in the name of veracity. Let an actor speak for him or herself when the saying cannot be improved upon. Quotations offered in this way will thus be made with elegance and parsimony, more vivacity and color, less taxing and more delightful for the reader.
 
In either case—veracity or verisimilitude—the quotation is offered at a specific point in the narrative, to make, or to emphasize, what we call a “narrative beat.” Just like in music, one’s prose can offer thematic rhythms, the delights of melody, even the “hook” that prevails in pop songs. A good, juicy, well-selected quotation can help make the music of a chapter, especially as it emphasizes or draws attention to particular narrative moments. These are the “beats” that comprise a well-told story, one that whisks a reader along while memorializing key moments.
 
In other words, a quotation in a piece of prose is offered only at a particular moment, to heighten or draw attention to specific narrative points that the writer wants to emphasize in some way. It is their specificity-in-the-moment, more than anything else, that gives them their effectiveness.
 
Which brings us back to epigraphs. The point of the epigraph is to offer a point of thematic contemplation. The epigraph illustrates the theme of the chapter—the whole chapter. The epigraph loses its function, and becomes in fact a point of confusion, if it is intended to apply only to a portion of a chapter, even more so a moment in a chapter.
 
An epigraph, in other words, is generic in a way that a quotation is not. A quotation, by definition, is meant to be specific, and in fact, the more specific (i.e., to the particular point in the narrative at which it appears), the better.
 
By recycling the passage as both epigraph and quotation, we are asking readers to accept a saying as both general (applicable to the whole chapter) and specific (applicable to only one particular point in the narrative.) This is bound either to produce confusion in the reader, or he or she will reject one usage of the passage in favor of the other. In either case, we would undermining any purpose we maintain for the quotation.
 
The confusion is probably slight, and may (as I trust it is in the case I am citing) be readily resolvable. But the best prose doesn’t ask readers to resolve internal or logical or narrative inconsistencies. Recycling the epigraph later in the chapter doesn’t emphasize the quotation, it confuses the narrative, however slightly, working against a reasonable writer’s purpose. For that reason the practice is probably best avoided.
 
—David J. Snyder