Titles/Title Pages/Incipits/Colophons: Difference between revisions
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How do you identify a book? In current times, most people would answer this seemingly obvious question with “the title.” But relatively speaking, the title, and its associated technologies of the title page, incipit, and colophon have only been around for so long; each of these technologies had to be invented. Prior to these inventions, books were designated by other means. This could be done in a couple of different ways: clay tablets were designated by numbers, Ancient Hebrew texts by the first few words (comparable to an incipit), and even the ancient oral stories of Greece and Rome were titled after the fact, most likely by scribes or grammarians (Levin xxiv-xxv). Following this age, titling devices were invented, and tracing the trajectory of titles, title pages, incipits, and colophons throughout book history proves valuable not only bibliographically, but when looking toward the current digital incunable age. | How do you identify a book? In current times, most people would answer this seemingly obvious question with “the title.” But relatively speaking, the title, and its associated technologies of the title page, incipit, and colophon have only been around for so long; each of these technologies had to be invented. Prior to these inventions, books were designated by other means. This could be done in a couple of different ways: clay tablets were designated by numbers, Ancient Hebrew texts by the first few words (comparable to an incipit), and even the ancient oral stories of Greece and Rome were titled after the fact, most likely by scribes or grammarians (Levin xxiv-xxv). Following this age, titling devices were invented, and tracing the trajectory of titles, title pages, incipits, and colophons throughout book history proves valuable not only bibliographically, but when looking toward the current digital incunable age. | ||
[[File:Barhtolomeus de propreitatibus rerum.JPG]] | [[File:Barhtolomeus de propreitatibus rerum.JPG]] | ||
== Works Cited == | == Works Cited == | ||
Revision as of 03:18, 25 November 2018
Introduction
How do you identify a book? In current times, most people would answer this seemingly obvious question with “the title.” But relatively speaking, the title, and its associated technologies of the title page, incipit, and colophon have only been around for so long; each of these technologies had to be invented. Prior to these inventions, books were designated by other means. This could be done in a couple of different ways: clay tablets were designated by numbers, Ancient Hebrew texts by the first few words (comparable to an incipit), and even the ancient oral stories of Greece and Rome were titled after the fact, most likely by scribes or grammarians (Levin xxiv-xxv). Following this age, titling devices were invented, and tracing the trajectory of titles, title pages, incipits, and colophons throughout book history proves valuable not only bibliographically, but when looking toward the current digital incunable age.
Works Cited
Levin, Harry. “The Title as a Literary Genre.” The Modern Language Review, vol 72, no. 4, Published by Modern Humanities Research Association, October 1977, pp. xxiii-xxxvi, JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3724776