Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature

Extract

Novels are written in prose rather than in verse. This simple insight promises to stimulate philosophical and historical investigations into the nature of the form. But any description of what the pages of almost every novel look like is so far largely missing. When a novel's typography is mentioned it is usually to point to pages that depart in some way from the norm. The normal page is one in which lines of text are arrayed under each other to form a rectangular block surrounded by sufficient margins of unprinted paper. Outside this block of text there will be page numbers and, often, headings or “running headlines” that give the title of the book and the chapter. Unlike verse, a line of text in a novel does not contain meaning. The breaks at the end of a line happen more or less arbitrarily, governed only by whatever rules are being followed for where to break a word, if a word has to be broken. In a novel the lines of text will almost always be justified. By varying the spaces between the words they will have equal, constant length. A page will be brought to an end at its last line. The attention of the typesetter, or whoever is making the blocks of text into pages, is brought to bear only when one line of the prose-unit, typically a “chapter,” is left stranded at the top of the following page. Computers now assist in these processes. Pages made in this way become containers ... log in or subscribe to read full text