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The chapter : a segmented history from antiquity to the twenty-first century

By: Dames, Nicholas.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: Princeton, New Jersey ; Princeton University Press , 2023Description: 370 pages.ISBN: 9780691135199.Subject(s): -- Literature -- Literary criticism -- Social history -- Social & cultural historyDDC classification: 809 Summary: "The book first examines what a chapter is, then discusses its emergence and function in ancient writings, scripture, legal texts, and other nonfictional forms, and finally traces the role of the chapter in the novel. Beyond a material history of the chapter, however, this book reads various manifestations of the chapter as a guide to the way writers have imagined time, and how the metaphor of the chapter maintains a ubiquitous and structuring presence in our lives and experiences. As Dames observes, "We 'start a new chapter' in our lives with dread or excitement; we 'close that chapter of my life' with regret or relief... This book can then be thought of as a study of the long, slow coming into being of the conditions of the chapter metaphor and its persistent grip on how we speak and think of change, transition, boundaries in time." Deeply reserached and engagingly written, this book presents a fascinating history of a form often taken for granted but central to the experience of reading"--
List(s) this item appears in: Spring 2023 | Spring 2024
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title.
Item type Current location Call number Status Date due
Non Fiction Non Fiction BardBerlinLibrary
2nd floor
809 DAM 2023 (Browse shelf) Available
Non Fiction Non Fiction BardBerlinLibrary
2nd floor
809 DAM 2023 (Browse shelf) Available

"The book first examines what a chapter is, then discusses its emergence and function in ancient writings, scripture, legal texts, and other nonfictional forms, and finally traces the role of the chapter in the novel. Beyond a material history of the chapter, however, this book reads various manifestations of the chapter as a guide to the way writers have imagined time, and how the metaphor of the chapter maintains a ubiquitous and structuring presence in our lives and experiences. As Dames observes, "We 'start a new chapter' in our lives with dread or excitement; we 'close that chapter of my life' with regret or relief... This book can then be thought of as a study of the long, slow coming into being of the conditions of the chapter metaphor and its persistent grip on how we speak and think of change, transition, boundaries in time." Deeply reserached and engagingly written, this book presents a fascinating history of a form often taken for granted but central to the experience of reading"--

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