peritext

English

Etymology

By surface analysis, peri- +‎ text.

Noun

peritext (plural peritexts)

1. (literary theory) Images and textual elements which surround, or are secondary to, the main body of a published work, such as an introduction, notes, front covers, etc.

   Coordinate terms: epitext, paratext, context, subtext

   • 2011, David Bellos, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?, Penguin, published 2012, page 143:

     The main work is not the translation at all, but Nabokov's appropriation of it through his inflated peritext.

   • 2011, Miranda Beaven Remnek, Miranda Remnek, The Space of the Book, page 252:

     Using a narrower focus (the reception of the oeuvre of just two writers, Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, who wrote as a team), the approach is literary and the perspective unusual, the editional segments at issue are not so much the texts themselves as their accompanying materials, or peritexts.

Derived terms

• peritextual (adjective)