Gérard Genette discussed the concept of the paratext in his book « Seuils ». ₁ According to Genette, a paratext is a device and a set of conventions at the threshold of the text, transmitting the book to its readers both from within the book (peritext) and from outside it (epitext).

It is a form of text that accompanies and completes the main text through the author’s name, the title, the genre, captions, introductions, footnotes, and so on.

It is a boundary, or a threshold, beyond a defined limit: the concept of a space where one may either enter or turn back, like a waiting room.

The blank page—the empty sheets before the title page—is the space between the cover and the text. Existing on the threshold, ambiguously between inside and outside, it is a process of passage through a kind of void before entering another world: the world of the text.


_{1. « Seuils », Gérard Genette, 1987}