In their "prototypical" form, both the letter and the epigram are characterised by brevity and a focus on the essentials. From an ancient perspective, both types of text also ranked at the lower end of the genre hierarchy. Over time, however, the letter and epigram established themselves as "serious", competitive forms and lent themselves to literary experimentation and innovation. Moreover, they often outgrew their original status as "simple" or "minor" text types and thus defied conventional expectations.

This volume examines the relationships and interactions between letters and epigrams in antiquity and the Middle Ages. This broad temporal framework makes it possible to analyse constants and divergences across various epochs and literary spaces.

The individual contributions focus on the similarities and differences between the two text types and also examine how they interpenetrate each other and thus produce a mixture or even a crossover of the genres: A letter can have epigrammatic moments or even have the overall effect of an epigram due to its pointedness, an epigram can be written in letter form, epigrams can be embedded in letters, etc.