Peritexts, intention, interpretation

The essay takes into account those of authorial peritexts which are most closely and strongly connected with the text (mainly because of their spatial and temporal position), and which are traditionally attributed - with approval or displeasure - the most indisputable right to model interpretation. Therefore: we have to consider the author's name, dating and - most of all - the title and the motto. Respect for the self-interpretative pressure of the title and the motto is connected with the belief that they belong to the text to which they refer. Such a point of view expresses the scholarly conviction that the only data significant (or valid) for interpretation can be found within the text itself. Sharing Gérard Genette's assumption that the status of a paratext is unstable and vague and opposing arbitary interiorization of the elements in question, I have tried to show booth their potential as well limitations in the function of communication - i.e. the function of manifesting, declaring and suggesting authorial intention with regard to literary works and the function of sustaining the links between the text and the author, in other works, of co-founding the work