Thresholds of interpretation on the threshold of change: Paratexts in late 19th-century Javanese Manuscripts

Gerard Genette's notion of the paratext as 'a threshold of interpretation' is employed in this article to explore a host of paratexts in late nineteenth century Javanese manuscripts from the Pura Pakualaman court library in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Although paratexts were used in earlier years, especially in the form of illuminated opening pages, verse and metrical markers and some (often very brief) information about authors and scribes, the final decades of the nineteenth century and first two of the twentieth saw major shifts in the kind of paratexts employed, reflecting, I suggest, wider changes in practices of reading, writing and the transmission of knowledge.