Anagram

An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another word: a new meaning is composed from the same letters. The anagram belongs to the combinatorial, playful devices of verbal art, in which an artistic or semantic effect arises from the hidden rearrangement of the letter composition. Historically anagrams were used to create pseudonyms, enciphered signatures, secret messages, and also in Baroque "curious" poetry. A special variety is the anagrammatic verse, in which the sound composition of a key word is repeated "scattered" through the text. The anagram demonstrates attention to the material, letter-sound form of the word and the capacity of language for combinatorial play. It borders on the palindrome, the acrostic and other formal-experimental devices and is studied by poetics in the aspect of a playful attitude toward the linguistic material.