peritext

With the book-based paratext theory Paratext: Thresholds of Interpretation (1987/1997), literary scholar Gérard Genette provides a tool that allows to examine how books ensure the text’s presence in the world, its “reception” and consumption (Genette 1).

It is through a publisher’s peritext that appears on the spine, front and back cover, and a book’s title pages that provide the book’s title, author name, publisher, and year of publication, that that we can identify and communicate a work. The book market highly relies on a publication’s peritext that forms a publications bibliographic data in post-processing; it is also of relevance in libraries. Obviously, in book culture, the publishing apparatus is well established. This is different in the field of electronic literature, due to the way the field evolved through its technological means of production and publication. Here, works are mostly self-published (Koskimaa, Eskelinen, di Rosario) on authors’ web sites and often re-published in multiple venues on the Web (such as online journals, or digital collections (Electronic Literature Collection I and II), and anthologies (ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature).

Considering e-lit’s particular publication situation and the various paratextual means the Web provides, the following questions emerge: how do e-lit authors make their works paratextually present? Is their practice of paratextual presentation indeed sufficient for post-processing?

This presentation builds on a study of nine works in which some of the following cases occurred in the examination of the work’s title pages: some works do not present the author’s name and title, in other cases, the year of publication is missing. To be sure, these omissions create problems for post-processing works for example in databases, libraries, scholarly communication, and also archiving. How can such bibliographic failures occur? The answer lies in what I call “paratextual integrity” that was often missing in my study-sample of works of electronic literature. As my study of the works’ title pages, along with the author’s home pages show, the reasons lie in the Web's architecture and how authors present their creative works both within their home page and within the self-published work.

By considering works of electronic literature through Genette’s book-based paratext theory I extend Genette’ss notions towards web-based publications and, based on the results of my study, make recommendations as to how an author's work can, based on proper use of the Web's architecture and paratext, indeed be “seen”, communicated, and captured in post-processing.

(Source: ELO 2015 Conference Catalog)

To Genette, the basic “nature of the paratext” is functional (7). In his theoretical account, he
presents a number of paratextual units (title, dedications, epigraphs etc.) and proofs its functionality through the analysis of respective examples. At the same time, he alerts that
paratexts may be unproductive and notes: “from the fact that the paratext always fulfills a
function, it does not necessarily follow that the paratext always fulfills its function well” (409).
That said, paratexts may be dysfunctional in that a paratext does not meet the function Genette
originally envisioned. A paratext is also dysfunctional if it is absent where it’d be expected: based
and bound to the materiality of the book-as-object, Genette has developed a map to locate the
types of paratexts he designates. As per Genette, a preface supposedly precedes a work and an
epigraph shouldn’t intervene a body’s text. Likewise, the publisher’s peritext spans around and
within the body of a work, while the epitext is located outside of a work’s material body. A paratext’s location thus defines its function.
If a paratext is absent in that it isn’t possible to locate it within Genette’s map of paratexts bound
to a publication, it is supposedly dysfunctional. It may however attain an intended literary effect
(as is the case in Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy). Interestingly, the effects of dysfunctional paratexts can make it’s very functions perceptible (cf. Desrochers and Tomaszek). Approached from a more pragmatic perspective however, dysfunctional, or missing paratexts may entail problems connected to the functionality of “identification” (Genette 80).
In this presentation I investigate paratexts that are absent and not localizable where prescribed by Genette. This is the case in numerous publications of electronic literature where what Genette calls the “publisher’s peritext” largely is missing.
Methodologically, I proof the absences with analyses of what appears, or is supposed to be the
“publisher’s peritext” of those publishing apparatuses devoted to electronic literature. All in all, I
take into consideration respective publishers, magazines and journals, but also the apparatus of
individual, self-published works.
In my discussion, I relate to the function the publisher’s peritext is supposed to perform as per Genette and argue for it’s importance from the perspective of those who rely on the publisher’s peritext, such as for example librarians, or database catalogers in the field of electronic literature.

Twenty-six years after its original publication in French, I examine and propose to revisit a traditional literary theory bound to the book-as-object for the realm of literature in programmable media: paratext theory as envisioned by French narratologist Gérard Genette (translated into English by Jane E. Levin, 1997). To Genette, paratext is that which accompanies a text. He differentiates and distinguishes paratexts according to location of appearance and the sender of paratextual information. Two concepts are relavant: peri- and epitext. Genette speaks and identifies peritexts as those elements of the book dictated by a publisher devoted to the cover, typesetting, format etc. and epitexts which exist outside a book in the form of notes and interviews. Both elements merge into what Genette calls paratext theory, all of which carry out a functionality. Among others, Genette envisions paratexts to fulfill a “literary function“ which serve for guiding a readers reading; a claim under critical exploration in this presentation. Investigating the theme of this conference, I question how paratext theory may help to locate the literary in electronic literature. How do the paratextual elements, or, more specific in the here presented context: how do peritexts that surround and point to a texts existence in fact point to a work’s literary content? Given the very informational original nature and functionality of paratexts, it should be expected to locate a work’s text in these liminal devices that accompany works of electronic literature. Methodologically, I take into consideration, compare, and search for locating the literary in different peritexts to one and the same work. Among others, the Electronic Literature Directory (ELD) that presents readers with encyclopedic articles on creative works is of particular interest to this study. The paper examines selected article contributions from the ELD, as well as work descriptions in the Electronic Literature Collection and asks how these locate the literary of a work. Text in an peritext is located if substantial engagement with a texts literary content is identified. This is true if a description relates to the themes and a work‘s motifs, if it presents a work’s characters, time, space, and setting of the imaginative writing. Optionally, the literary may also be located in a presentation of how a work’s material strategy and behavior relates to the content of a work. The paper intends to make the e-lit community attentive to locate text in paratexts to creative works. This is relevant if a works technical obsolesence is considered. Despite of archival work, if a paratext is all that is available should a work no longer be accessible, one should wish for a paratext that formally is as extensible as possible and as comprehensible as possible when it comes to a work’s literary content that is no longer readable. Such a proposal conceives paratexts as cultural heritage. It relates to Philppe Bootz’s and Alexandra Saemmer’s writing on the theory put forward in the discussion of the “lability of the device“ and builds on Saemmer who in an article states “I [thus] consider the paratext as an ultimate defence against the lability of our digital creations, as well as a part of my work“ (90).

Source: Author's Abstract