A portrait frontispiece introduces the reader to the author and creates an impression, for example, of power, wealth or intellect. The frontispiece may also set the tone of the book, perhaps satirical or specialist. It may offer a visual and metaphorical interpretation of the central idea of the book, particularly if it is complex. It usually demands visual rather than verbal literacy to ‘read’ and decode the illustration. The frontispiece is another form of paratext which sits at the threshold of a book and ensures the text’s presence in the world.
(Genette, Gerard, Paratexts: thresholds of interpretation (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. And although we do not always know whether these productions are to be regarded as belonging to the text, in any case they surround it and extend it, precisely in order to present it, in the usual sense of this verb but also in the strongest sense: to make present, to ensure the text’s presence in the world, its “reception” and consumption in the form (nowadays, at least) of a book. … text is rarely presented in an unadorned state, unreinforced and unaccompanied by a certain number of verbal or other productions, such as the author’s name, a title, a preface, illustrations. Genette refers to these elements as paratexts: they do not belong to the text but sit at the threshold of the text, and add meaning to it:
All invite the reader to participate in the text. Gerard Genette identifies various devices and conventions that mediate between the text and the reader, including titles and subtitles, forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, epistles addressed to the reader, notes, epilogues and afterwords. However, in the 17 th century, the front matter of a book indicated to the reader how to engage with and understand the text. Indeed, it is rare to find frontispieces in modern books. Modern readers may be tempted to skip past the front matter of a book, including the frontispiece, title page, dedication, preface, etc., and start their reading – and understanding – from the main part of the text. Over the course of the 17 th century the title page was accompanied by an illustration on the facing page and the form of the word changed to frontispiece – front piece. Subsequently, the term was probably used more generally at first to refer to the front matter in a book, especially early title pages which were often decorated with architectural features such as classical columns and pediments. Its first English usage was as an architectural term for the façade of a building.
The word frontispiece derives from the French word frontispice which derives from the Latin word frontispicium – frons meaning ‘forehead’ and specere meaning ‘to look at’.
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