Book contents
- Defoe’s Tour and Early Modern Britain
- Frontispiece
- Defoe’s Tour and Early Modern Britain
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Tables
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- Part 1 Form and Function
- Chapter 1 The Identity of Britain
- Chapter 2 Embedding and Embodying the Nation
- Chapter 3 The Epic Strain
- Chapter 4 The Shape of the Nation
- Part 2 Time
- Part 3 Place
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- General Index
- Index of Places
Chapter 2 - Embedding and Embodying the Nation
Textual Practices in the Tour
from Part 1 - Form and Function
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2022
- Defoe’s Tour and Early Modern Britain
- Frontispiece
- Defoe’s Tour and Early Modern Britain
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Tables
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- Part 1 Form and Function
- Chapter 1 The Identity of Britain
- Chapter 2 Embedding and Embodying the Nation
- Chapter 3 The Epic Strain
- Chapter 4 The Shape of the Nation
- Part 2 Time
- Part 3 Place
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- General Index
- Index of Places
Summary
This chapter describes some paratextual practices in the Tour, as they are defined by Gérard Genette in Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. These start with the title-page and prefatory sections, and end with appendices and indexes. Other features under review are sections embedded in the text, such as manuscripts cited, proposals reprinted from external sources, lists taken from standard reference works, enumerative tables, and so on. What the various devices examined here do create a flexible medium, into which Defoe can insert a range of textual and paratextual messages – recycling his own work, transferring the substance and appearance of material from other writers, and enacting the shape of the nation in the constituent parts – so that volumes, letters, prefaces and appendices collectively body forth a virtual representation of Great Britain.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Defoe's Tour and Early Modern BritainPanorama of the Nation, pp. 46 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022