Dames, Nicholas
The chapter : a segmented history from antiquity to the twenty-first century - Princeton, New Jersey ; Princeton University Press , 2023 . - 370 pages
"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"--
9780691135199
--Literature--Literary criticism--Social history--Social & cultural history
809
The chapter : a segmented history from antiquity to the twenty-first century - Princeton, New Jersey ; Princeton University Press , 2023 . - 370 pages
"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"--
9780691135199
--Literature--Literary criticism--Social history--Social & cultural history
809