Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation - Paperback

by Gerard Genette (Author), Jane E. Lewin (Translator), Richard Macksey (Foreword by)

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, Gérard 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.

Back Jacket

In 'Paratexts, ' an English translation of 'Seuils, ' Gerard Genette shows how the special pragmatic status of paratextual declarations requires a carefully calibrated analysis of their illocutionary force.