acrostic

A number of lines of writing, usually verse, whose initial letters (read downwards) form a word, phrase, or sentence. A single acrostic is formed by the initial letters of lines only; a double acrostic is formed by the first and last letters.

Eusebius gives in his 4th-century Life of Constantine a set of Greek verses of which the initial letters form the words Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter (Jesus Christ son of God Saviour); these initials in turn form ichthus, a fish, which then came to have a mystical meaning. The comedies of Plautus are each preceded by an argument, the initial letters of which, when joined, read as the title of the play. The best-known English acrostics are contained in John Davies's Hymnes of Astraea 1599, in praise of the Queen, consisting of 26 poems, each of 16 lines, whose first letters form the words ‘Elisabetha Regina’. A clever, more modern example is Edgar Allan Poe's sonnet ‘An Enigma’.