Explanation
Epicrisis first reports a saying, thought, or textual passage and then appends explicit evaluative commentary. Quotation and comment remain recognisable as two voices or levels, yet the second is coupled to the first so as to explain, assess, confirm, or reject it. Selection and framing already influence how the quoted material can be read before overt judgement begins. Analysis therefore verifies wording, scope, and provenance, separates statement from judgement, and finally asks whether the comment follows from the passage or assigns it an alien meaning, intention, or significance.
Movement of thought
1. The reported saying is verified for wording, speaker, context, and possible abridgement. 2. Quotation or paraphrase is strictly separated from the subsequent commenting voice. 3. The judgement is classified as explanation, endorsement, refutation, evaluation, or updating. 4. Evidence and inferential rules show whether the passage actually supports the attached commentary. 5. An alternative commentary reveals interpretive possibilities left open by the original statement.
Scientific use case
Intertextuality studies, rhetoric, science communication, journalism research, and citation studies examine epicrisis through quotation fidelity, framing, and evaluative logic. It is useful for analysing how authority is adopted, tested, or reinterpreted.
Example
A study quotes the claim “The procedure is fully transparent” and comments, “This self-description is limited by the unpublished selection stage.” It then supplies the relevant evidence.
Counterexample
A quotation without subsequent explicit judgement is not epicrisis. Nor is commentary sufficient when it does not recognisably reproduce another or an earlier thought.
Distinction
Distinguish epicrisis from gnome, exemplum, quotation montage, and mere paraphrase. Epicrisis requires an explicit judgement following the reproduced material; quotation alone leaves that second movement absent.
Effect on thought and perception
Epicrisis presents another voice while directing its interpretation. It can enable critical distance and transparent scrutiny, but selective quotation may also make one judgement appear unavoidable.
Resonance
An earlier or foreign voice sounds again and immediately receives an answering voice. Meaning emerges in the interval and tension between report and judgement.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Epicrisis“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-HAR5-0010. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR5-0010The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
In Peacham’s 1593 handbook, epicrisis adds a judgement or clarification to a cited saying. The added voice can praise, criticise or explain; quotation is therefore not treated as an automatically self-interpreting deposit of authority. Peacham prefers a concise intervention and distinguishes the effects of praise placed before a saying from praise placed after it. His caution is particularly useful for source-sensitive reading: ignorance can misinterpret, and hostility can distort the evaluation of a worthwhile statement. For the Atlas, the historical figure exposes two layers that should remain visible whenever a source is used—the cited position and the commentator’s contribution. An interpretation may illuminate a difficult passage while still being contestable. This rhetorical use of epicrisis must be kept separate from later clinical or other specialised uses of the related word. The inspected English entry establishes a sixteenth-century reception witness, not the earliest borrowing or a complete history of the term across disciplines.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Commentary is a testable interpretive contribution, not a property to be written back into the quotation.