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{{Short description|Term in literary criticism}}
{{for|the translation software|United Bible Societies}}
In [[literature|literary interpretation]], '''paratext''' is material that surrounds a published main [[Text (literary theory)|text]] (e.g., the story, non-fiction description, poems, etc.) supplied by the authors, editors, printers, and publishers. These added elements form a frame for the main text, and can change the reception of a text or its interpretation by the public. Paratext is most often associated with books, as they typically include a cover (with associated [[cover art]]), title, [[Book design#Front matter|front matter]] (dedication, opening information, foreword, epigraph), [[Book design#Back matter (end matter)|back matter]] (endpapers, indexes, and colophons) footnotes, and many other materials not crafted by the author. Other editorial decisions can also fall into the category of paratext, such as the formatting or typography. Because of their close association with the text, it may seem that authors should be given the final say about paratextual materials, but often that is not the case.

Major examples of the impacts of publisher-inserted material include the case of the 2009 young adult novel ''[[Liar (novel)|Liar]]'', which was initially published with an image of a white girl on the cover, although the narrator of the story was identified in the text as black.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Bloomsbury backs down over book cover race row |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=2009-08-10 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/10/bloomsbury-book-cover-race-row |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231104005210/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/aug/10/bloomsbury-book-cover-race-row |archive-date=2023-11-04 |access-date=2023-11-03 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

The concept of paratext is closely related to the concept of [[hypotext]], which is the earlier text that serves as a source for the current text.{{r|thresholds|pp=396-397}}

==Theory==
[[literary theory|Literary theorist]] [[Gérard Genette]] defines paratext as those things in a published work that accompany the text, things such as the author's name, the title, [[preface]] or [[introduction (essay)|introduction]], or [[illustration]]s. He states, "More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a threshold."<ref name="thresholds">{{Cite book |title=Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation |last=Genette |first=Gérard |date=1997 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=0-521-41350-8 |author-link=Gérard Genette |url=https://archive.org/details/paratextsthresho0000gene |hdl=2027/heb40164 |pages=1–2 |oclc=867050409 |access-date=2025-04-05 |url-access=limited}}</ref> It is "a zone between text and off-text, a zone not only of transition but also of transaction: a privileged place of pragmatics and a strategy, of an influence on the public, an influence that ... is at the service of a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it". Then quoting [[Philippe Lejeune]], Genette further describes paratext as "a fringe of the printed text which in reality controls one's whole reading of the text". This threshold consists of a peritext, consisting of elements such as titles, chapter titles, prefaces and notes. It also includes an epitext, which consists of elements such as interviews, publicity announcements, reviews by and addresses to critics, private letters and other authorial and editorial discussions – 'outside' of the text in question. The paratext is the sum of the peritext and epitext.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Intertextuality|last=Allen|first=Graham|author-link=Graham Allen (writer) |url=https://archive.org/details/intertextuality0000alle |url-access=limited |publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2000|isbn=0-415-17474-0 |location=London|pages=103}}</ref> Book scholar [[Nicholas Basbanes]] extends the concept of paratext to include illustrations, dust jackets, indexes, appendices, the thickness and weight of paper, typefaces, and binding.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Splendor of Letters|last=Basbanes|first=Nicholas|publisher=HarperCollins|year=2003|location=New York|pages=229}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Diegesis]]
* [[Mimesis]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Basbanes, Nicholas. ''A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World''. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
* {{cite book|first = Gerd|last = Bayer|year = 2016|title = Novel Horizons: The Genre Making of Restoration Fiction |publisher = Manchester University Press|location = Manchester|isbn = 978-1-78-499123-4}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Collins |first1=Ronald K. L. |last2=Skover |first2=David M. |title=Paratexts |journal=Stanford Law Review |date=February 1992 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=509–552 |doi=10.2307/1228974|jstor=1228974 }}
* Genette, Gérard: ''Seuils''. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1987. (translated as ''Paratexts. Thresholds of interpretation'', Cambridge: CUP, 1997)
* Huber, Alexander: ''[https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:28891/ Paratexte in der englischen Erzählprosa des 18. Jahrhunderts &#91;Paratexts in eighteenth-century English prose fiction&#93;]''. (Master's thesis [in German]). Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, 1997. [discusses Henry Fielding's ''Tom Jones'', Jonathan Swift's ''A Tale of a Tub'', and Laurence Sterne's ''Tristram Shandy'']
* Müllerová, Lenka: Reklamní aspekty sekundárních knižních textů v devadesátých letech 20. století (Thesis). Available from http://is.muni.cz/th/117754/ff_d/?lang=en;id=121545
* Pellatt, Valerie. ''Text, Extratext, Metatext and Paratext in Translation.'' Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
* {{cite journal |last1=Stanitzek |first1=Georg |title=Texts and Paratexts in Media |journal=Critical Inquiry |date=September 2005 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=27–42 |doi=10.1086/498002|s2cid=161546900 |translator1-last=Klein|translator1-first=Ellen|url=http://rcin.org.pl/Content/66266 |type=Submitted manuscript }}
*Skare, Roswitha. “The Paratext of Digital Documents.” ''Journal of Documentation'' 77, no. 2 (2021): 449–60.

{{Narrative modes}}
{{Appropriation in the Arts}}
{{Literary composition}}
{{Ancient Greek philosophical concepts}}
{{Aristotelianism}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Critical theory]]
[[Category:Literary theory]]
[[Category:Narratology]]