Epigram
Epigram - meaning Summary
Ironic Reading Before Sleep
The poem describes a sleepless narrator lying next to manuscripts and reading a poem that condemns women who sleep with manuscripts. The speaker responds with wry amusement and irony, imagining the critic’s priorities and awarding him a tongue-in-cheek grade not for moralizing or sexual prowess but for how he treats his books. It turns a quiet domestic moment into a light, self-aware comment on literary seriousness and desire.
Read Complete AnalysesOn the bed, in a line beside me: manuscripts. No way to sleep. So I read: a poem of contempt for women who sleep with manuscripts. (Seems to think he’d top them in interest.) He’d get top marks in my book not for sex or a sermon, but shelving.
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