Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation

by Gerard Genette , Foreword by Richard Macksey , Translated by Jane E. Lewin

• ISBN13: 9780521424066
• ISBN10: 0521424062
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-03-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details
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Summary

Paratexts are those liminal devices and conventions, both within and outside the book, that mediate between book, author and reader: titles, forewords and publishers' jacket copy form part of a book's private and public history. In this first English translation of Paratexts, G_rard Genette offers a global view of these liminal mediations and their relation to the reading public. With precision, clarity and through wide reference, he shows how paratexts interact with general questions of literature as a cultural institution. Richard Macksey's foreword situates Genette in contemporary literary theory.

Author Biography

Gerard Genette is Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and Visiting Professor in the Department of French, New York University.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Translator's note

1. Introduction

2. The publisher's peritext

3. The name of the author

4. Titles

5. The please-insert

6. Dedications and inscriptions

7. Epigraphs

8. The prefatorial situation of communication

9. The functions of the original preface

10. Other prefaces, other functions

11. Intertitles

12. Notes

13. The public epitext

14. The private epitext

15. Conclusion

Additional references

Index.