Editing Lipogram (section)

==History==
[[Lasus of Hermione]], who lived during the second half of the sixth century BCE, is the most ancient author of a lipogram. This makes the lipogram, according to [[Quintus Curtius Rufus]], "the most ancient systematic artifice of Western literature".<ref name="Oulipo p.100">''Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature''. p. 100 University of Nebraska Press. {{ISBN|978-0803281318}}</ref> Lasus did not like the [[sigma]], and excluded it from one of his poems, entitled ''Ode to the Centaurs,'' of which nothing remains; as well as a ''Hymn to Demeter'', of which the first verse remains:<ref name="Oulipo p.100"/>

{{verse transliteration-translation
|lang=grc
|originalHeading = Original 
|Δάματρα μέλπω Κόραν τε Κλυμένοι᾽ ἄλοχον
μελιβόαν ὕμνον ἀναγνέων
Αἰολίδ᾽ ἂμ βαρύβρομον ἁρμονίαν
|transliterationHeading = Transliteration
|Dámatra mélpô Kóran te Klyménoi᾽ álochon
melibóan hýmnon anagnéôn
Aiolíd᾽ ám barýbromon harmonían
|translationHeading = English translation
|I chant of Demeter and Kore, Wife of the famed [Hades]
Lifting forth a gentle-voiced hymn
In the deep-toned Aeolian mode.<ref>Athen., 14.624e–f, and see 10.455c–d</ref>}}

The Greek poets from late antiquity [[Nestor of Laranda]] and [[Tryphiodorus]] wrote lipogrammatic adaptations of the Homeric poems: Nestor composed an ''[[Iliad]]'', which was followed by Tryphiodorus' ''[[Odyssey]]''.<ref>{{Citation| last1=Swain| first1=S.| last2=Harrison| first2=S.| last3=Elsner| first3=J.| title=Severan Culture| place=Cambridge| year=2007 |isbn=978-0521859820| page=5}}</ref> Both Nestor's Iliad and Tryphiodorus' Odyssey were composed of 24 books (like the original Iliad and Odyssey) each book omitting a subsequent letter of the [[Greek alphabet]]. Therefore, the first book omitted alpha, the second beta, and so forth.<ref name="MotteJrWarrenF" />

Twelve centuries after Tryphiodorus wrote his lipogrammatic ''Odyssey'', in 1711, the influential London essayist and journalist [[Joseph Addison]] commented on this work (although it had been lost), arguing that "it must have been amusing to see the most elegant word of the language rejected like "a diamond with a flaw in it" if it was tainted by the proscribed letter".<ref>"Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature", p. 101. University of Nebraska Press. {{ISBN|978-0803281318}}</ref>

[[Petrus Riga]], a canon of Sainte-Marie de Reims during the 11th century, translated the Bible, and due to its scriptural obscurities called it ''Aurora''. Each canto of the translation was followed by a resume in Lipogrammatic verse; the first canto has no ''A'', the second has no ''B'', and so on. There are two hundred and fifty manuscripts of Petrus Riga's Bible still preserved.<ref>Jacques Bens, Claude Berge, and Paul Braffort, ''History of the Lipogram'', pp. 101, 102</ref>

There is a tradition of German and Italian lipograms excluding the letter ''R'' dating from the seventeenth century until modern times. While some authors excluded other letters, it was the exclusion of the ''R'' which ensured the practice of the lipogram continued into modern times. In German especially, the ''R'', while not the most prevalent letter, has a very important grammatical role, as masculine pronouns, etc. in the nominative case include an ''R'' (e.g. {{lang|de|er}}, {{lang|de|der}}, {{lang|de|dieser}}, {{lang|de|jener}}, {{lang|de|welcher}}).<ref>"Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature", p. 102 University of Nebraska Press. {{ISBN|978-0803281318}}</ref> For the Italian authors, it seems to be a profound dislike of the letter ''R'' which prompted them to write lipograms excluding this letter (and often only this letter).<ref name="Oulipo p.103">"Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature", p. 103 University of Nebraska Press. {{ISBN|978-0803281318}}</ref>

There is also a long tradition of ''vocalic lipograms'', in which a vowel (or vowels) is omitted. This tends to be the most difficult form of the lipogram. This practice was developed mainly in Spain by the Portuguese author Alonso de Alcala y Herrera who published an octavo entitled {{lang|es|Varios efectos de amor, en cinco novelas exemplares, y nuevo artificio para escribir prosa y versos sin una de las letras vocales}}. From Spain, the method moved into France<ref>For example, this 1853 example omits "A":<br/ >{{Cite web|title=Curieux voyage autour du monde de Jacques Arago|url=https://mediterranees.net/voyageurs/jacques_arago/texte.html|access-date=16 January 2023|website=mediterranees.net}}</ref> and England.<ref name="Oulipo p.103"/>

One of the most remarkable examples of a lipogram is [[Ernest Vincent Wright]]'s novel ''[[Gadsby (novel)|Gadsby]]'' (1939), which has over 50,000 words but not a single letter ''E''.<ref name="SS1">{{cite web |last=Andrews|first=Dale| title=Constrained Writing | url=http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/02/constrained-writing.html | publisher=SleuthSayers| location=Washington| date=26 February 2013}}</ref> Wright's self-imposed rule prohibited such common English words as ''the'' and ''he'', plurals ending in ''-es'', past tenses ending in ''-ed'', and even abbreviations like ''Mr.'' (since it is short for ''Mister'') or ''Rob'' (for ''Robert''). Yet the narration flows fairly smoothly, and the book was praised by critics for its literary merits.<ref>{{citation|last= Burton |first= Walt |title= Fifty Thousand Words Minus |work= Oshkosh Daily |date=25 March 1937 |url= http://www.newspaperarchive.com/LandingPage.aspx?type=glpnews&search=%22wright%2066%20sat%20down%22&img=\\na0014\1347132\8899981_clean.html}}</ref><ref>{{citation|last= Bellamy |first= Francis Rufus |journal=Fiction Parade and Golden Book Magazine |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hVNZAAAAIAAJ&q=gadsby |pages=62 |title=Glancing Through |volume= 2 |issue= 5 |date= March 1936}}</ref>

Wright was motivated to write ''Gadsby'' by an earlier four-[[stanza]] lipogrammatic poem of another author.<ref>{{citation|last= Park |first= Ed |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/0232,171103,37208,12.html |title= Egadsby! Ernest Vincent Wright's Machine Dreams |journal= The Village Voice |date= 6 August 2002 }}</ref>

Even earlier, Spanish playwright [[Enrique Jardiel Poncela]] published five short stories between 1926 and 1927, each one omitting a vowel; the best known are "{{lang|es|El Chofer Nuevo}}" ("The new Driver"), without the letter ''A'', and "{{lang|es|Un marido sin vocación}}" ("A Vocationless Husband"), without the ''E''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://perso.wanadoo.es/jardielponcela/documentos/texto1.htm|title=Un marido sin vocación|website=perso.wanadoo.es|access-date=7 September 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304002715/http://perso.wanadoo.es/jardielponcela/documentos/texto1.htm|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last= Jardiel |first= Enrique |title= Para Leer Mientras Sube el Ascensor |year= 1948 }}</ref>

Interest in lipograms was rekindled by [[Georges Perec]]'s novel {{lang|fr|La Disparition}} (1969) (openly inspired by Wright's ''Gadsby'') and its English translation ''[[A Void]]'' by [[Gilbert Adair]].<ref name="SS1" /> Both works are missing the letter ''E'', which is the most common letter in French as well as in English. A Spanish translation instead omits the letter ''A'', the second most common letter in that language. Perec subsequently wrote {{lang|fr|[[Les revenentes]]}} (1972), a novel that uses no vowels except for ''E''. Perec was a member of [[Oulipo]], a group of French authors who adopted a variety of constraints in their work. {{lang|fr|La Disparition}} is, to date, the longest lipogram in existence.<ref>{{citation|last= Sorensen |first= Roy |title= Blanks: Signs of Omission |journal= American Philosophical Quarterly |date= October 1999 }}</ref>