ACTA
UNI VERSITATIS
LODZIENSIS
FOLIA LITTER A R IA A N G L IC A 3, 1999
W itold Ostrow ski
TITLES AND SUBTITLES:
PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THEIR HISTORY AND FUNCTION
Suppose a reader takes A. J. C ro n in ’s book The Stars L o o k D own and
read s its title. W hat does he expect the title to tell him? Som ething ab o u t
the contents o f the book. Will the title give him the inform ation?
Suppose he has read the novel and returns to the title to understand
its m eaning. Will it help him ? It will, but only if it occurs to him th at
th e title m ay be a q u o tatio n . T hen the reader will open The O xfo rd
D ictionary o f Q uotations - if he has it - and trace the title to a passage
from M atth ew A rn o ld ’s poem In M em ory o f the A uthor o f Obermann. T he
passage ru n s like this:
That G racious Child, that thorn-crowned Man!
He lived while we believed.
N ow he is dead. Far hence he lies
In the lorn Syrian town.
And on his grave, with shining eyes
The Syrian stars look down.
O nly then the title o f the novel will becom e a com m ent on the sense
o f the sto ry ab o u t B ritish colliers and their struggle fo r bread and safety.
N o w the title will im ply a reality in which Jesus C hrist is no t alive, but
dead. N o t risen to his glory, bu t dead in a forlorn tow n w here on his
to m b only stars look dow n.
T h u s read the title adds an additional - religious - dep th to a socialp roblem novel.
I hope th a t the exam ple w ith which I am opening this study has
suggested quite a num ber o f problem s connected w ith reading and in ter­
pretatio n .
I believe it is tim e to turn scholars’ atten tio n to w hat we m ight call
paratex ts which form a fram ew ork o f the m ain text o f a w ritten w ork,
especially fictional. T o these belong titles, subtitles, supertitles dedications,
m o tto e s, prefaces, in tro d u ctio n s, afterw ords, notes, annexes, glossaries,
colo p h o n s and all other additions to the m ain text, which in m ost cases
function as ad ditional inform ation an d /o r com m entary.
T h e present-day tendency is to reduce them to an absolute m inim um ,
possibly w ith the exception o f learned editorial prefaces to the w orks of
m o d ern , o r n o t so m odern, classics and o f scholarly editions o f older w orks
like C h au cer’s o r S hakespeare’s. But in the times o f the R enaissance and
in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries titles told whole stories. T he
R o m an tics o ften acted as au th o rs, editors, and co m m en tato rs in one
person. T his is to be seen, for exam ple, in B yron’s Giaour, in which, by
the way, Byron the poet seems sincerely pathetic while B yron the note-m aker
sounds ironic o r satirical.
Som e difference betw een the a u th o r’s and the co m m en tato r’s a ttitu d e
to the text m ay also be seen in the p aratexts o f S cott’s novels.
B ut let m e concentrate on titles and look back into their d istan t p a s t.1
FIRST-W ORD, E P O N Y M O U S A N D GENERIC TITLES
O nly very few titles survived from ancient Egypt, owing to the fact th a t
the beginning o f a papyrus containing text was far m ore exposed to
im p airm en t or destruction, th an its end.
T h e E gyptians seem to have favoured long titles. A n au to b io g rap h y
begins as follows:
A Prince, the L o rd Lieutenant o f the South... the Judge o f N ekhen... the
K in g ’s only friend, respected by Osiris, the First o f the Western Ones, Weni
speaks.1
A collection o f teachings o r m axim s (sboiet) opens like this:
The Beginning o f Teaching devised by H is M ajesty the King o f the Upper
E gypt and the King o f the Lower Egypt, Sehetep-ib-Ra, Am en-em -hat, let
1 I shall limit my inquiry to the Mediterranean Civilization though I am aware that in
this w ay I am excluding the Persian and Arabian Bast which excited the European im agination
in the M iddle A ges and later with its poetic titles o f magical beauty, to m ention only K itab
a lf laila va laila ( The Book o f One Thousand and One Nights). A touch o f som ething Biblical
or oriental may be recognized in the titles o f John R uskin’s The Seven Lam ps o f Architecture,
Sesam e and Lilies, The Crown o f W ild Olive, in D ante Gabriel R ossetti’s House o f Life and
W illiam M orris’s The Earthly Paradise.
1 O wing to technical difficulties in finding English translations o f the quoted ancient texts
1 have rendered them for the purposes o f this paper into English, translating the Polish
translations from Egyptian by an expert egyptologist Tadeusz Andrzejewski, Opowiadania
egipskie (Warszawa: PIW, 1958).
him live happy and in health, justified with voice, which he has expressed as
the M essage o f Truth to his Son, the L ord o f all things.
P aradoxically, some colophons
“ inscriptions at the end o f a book, or
a literary com position, often nam ing the au th o r and scribe or printer, with
place and d ate o f execution etc., as on a m odern title p ag e” 3 - som etim es
act as titles to the old E gyptian texts.
T hey all begin with the words: Behold, it has been accomplished . . . which
resem ble the M edieval Explicit liber . . .
T he so-called story o f Two Brothers, has a colophon which tells us
m uch less ab o u t the contents than ab o u t the circum stances:
Behold, it has been accomplished happily and in peace under the direction o f Kegob,
the Writer o f the Dual White H ouse, who belongs to the Pharaonn’s D ual W hite House,
let him live happy and in health, and the Scribe Hori, and the Scribe M er-em -ope. The
Scribe Ennene, the owner o f this book has m ade it. Thot will be an enemy to him who
will speak badly about the book.
One surviving colophon enum erates the characters o f the story:
A story has been accomplished about Setne Kha-em -wese and Nefer-ke-Ptah, and Ah-were
his wife, and Mer-ibbi, her son in the year 15 on the first day o f the season o f growth.
W hen we open L e M o rt D 'Arthur, we shall find interesting parallels
w ith the E gyptian practice. Sir T hom as M alory does no t give titles to his
B ooks, b u t som etim es sums up their contents in the colophons.
B ook I ends simply with: “Explicit Liber P rim us,” b u t B ook III with:
“ Explicit the W edding o f K ing A rth u r.” Book V ends with “T hus endeth
the fifth book o f the conquest th at K ing A rth u r had against Lucius the
E m p ero r o f R om e, and here follow eth the sixth book, w hich is o f Sir
L ancelot in L ak e.” Sim ilarly, Book VI winds up with the form ula: “ Explicit
the noble tale o f Sir L ancelot du Lake, which is the VI book. H ere
follow eth the tale o f Sir G areth o f O rkney th a t was called B eaum ains by
Sir K ay, and is the seventh b o o k .” 4 M alory’s whole w ork ends w ith tw o
lengthy colophons - one by the au th o r, the other by W. C axton. B oth are
sh o rt sum m aries o f the book and contain a m ention ab o u t its au th o r.
T hese ancient Egyptian and the m edieval English exam ples raise the
question o f the function o f the title: m ust it necessarily function as the
sh ortest sum m ary o f the w ork at the head o f w hich it stands?
A negative answ er is implied by the B abylonian and early ancient
H ebrew custom o f nam ing texts after their first w ords. I he B abylonian
3 1 am quoting Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (Edinburgh London: W. and
R. Chambers, 1962).
4 Cf. Sir Thom as M alory, Le M ort D'Arthur in two volumes, Janet Cowen, ed. (Harm ondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), Vol. I, pp. 59, 116, 192, 230.
epic ab o u t C reation has been called Enuma Elish after its beginning: “ W hen
Above heaven had not yet been n am ed.”
The Pentateuch followed the sam e custom . Genesis is called in H ebrew
Bereshit, because it begins w ith the w ords “In the Beginning." E xodus is
called Ve-elle-Shemot {These A re the Names)', Leviticus - Vayyikra {The
L o rd Called M oses); N um bers - Bem idbar {In the Desert), and D euteronom y
- Hadderbarim {W ith These Words).
T hese purely “ technical” titles were replaced in o ther books o f the
H eb rew Bible by titles derived from the th en recognized genres, like
Chronicles (in H ebrew Dibre H ayyam in, literally: “The events o f the days"),
like The Song o f Songs {Shir-ha-Shirim), or form ed after the offices or
nam es o f principal characters: Kings, Judges, Samuel, Ruth, Esther, Isaiah,
Jeremiah e tc.5
It is possible therefore, to distinguish in the S cripture different kinds
o f titles: the first-w ords, titles, the eponym ous titles, like Jeremiah or Judith,
and the genre- o r generic titles like Chronicles, Proverbs, Psalms an d Epistles.
PE R IPH R A ST IC TITL ES, H ISTO R Y A N D CH R O N IC LE
P erip h rastic titles seem to have been invented by G reeks. T hey begin
w ith the w ord peri (“ a b o u t” ) like the L atin de. One o f the earliest titles
o f this kind was A nax im an d er’s Peri physeos - A bout Nature. A ristotle
w ro te Peri psyches - A bout the Soul.
T h e R om ans followed the G reek exam ple and the periphrastic titles like
C ato the E ld er’s De agri cultura and C icero’s De imperio Cnaei Pompeii,
De oratore, an d D e lege agraria abound in R om an literature.
T h e fact th a t the literary culture o f E urope was shaped by the L atin
trad itio n and th a t L atin becam e the international language o f the C hurch,
learning, and diplom acy dow n to the seventeenth century,6 m ad e the titles
based on L atin m odels spread everywhere including B ritain.
G ildas D e Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (c. 547), Bede’s De N atura
R erum (c. 703), A ldhelm ’s De Laudibus Virginitatis are early exam ples o f
3
I owe the inform ation to the Polish edition o f the Babylonian epic by A nthony Lange,
ed. and trans., Epos Babiloński Enuma E liś (Brody: Feliks West, 1909); to the Introductions
to The Jerusalem Bible (London: D arton, Longm an and Todd, 1968) and to m odern Polish
translations o f the Bible: Pismo Św ięte Starego i Nowego Testamentu (Poznań—Warszawa:
Pallotinum , 1980) and the four-volumed Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testam entu (Poznań:
K sięgarnia św. W ojciecha, 1991-1994).
* Francis Bacon published his works both in English and in Latin n ot only because he
wished to propagate his views all over Europe, but also because he had doubts about the
permanence o f the fashion o f writing in English.
p eriphrastic titles. H istoria Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (c. 731), N en n iu s’s
H istoria Britonum (c. 796), and Epistola ad Acircium (seventh century) are
im itations o f o th er R om an L atin titles.
It is also to be noted th a t the very word title in E u ro p ean civilization
has been derived from the L atin titulus the first m eaning o f which is
an inscription.
O ne o f the lasting literary legacies o f the G reco-R om an culture was the
invention and in tro duction o f some generic titles referring to historiography.
H ero d o tu s had been a pioneer, writing his Historia apodexis, the title o f
w hich m ight be translated as A n Exposition o f Inquiries (the “ inquiries”
= historia). This title, used as a generic nam e in the singular, opened the
way to w riting H istory and histories and stories o f all possible kinds
com posed ever after in all E u ro p ean literatures.
B ede’s and N en n iu s’s H istories o f the English and o f th e W elsh,
m entioned above, have the distinction o f being the earliest histories w ritten
in B ritain by the natives.
T h e assortm ent o f titles referring to H istoriography has been enlarged
by the G reeks in the B yzantine period and even earlier by the R om ans.
Annales Pontificum are the source o f the titles o f all later annals. Jo h n o f
A n tio ch ’s H istoria chronike, a history o f the w orld brought dow n to A D
610, and his Chronikdn Paschale which ended ab o u t A D 629, originated
the titles o f all chronicles.
In England R anulph H igden’s L atin Polychronicon o f the fourteenth
century has been englished under the same title by Jo h n o f T revisa in 1402.
T h e p lural o f the title - chronica - used by Jo h n o f F o rd u n in his Chronica
Gentis Scotorum , was understood as a singular and established its English
equivalent chronicleP
T h e early use o f the term chronicle did not distinguish it from the annals
w hich are synonym us. F o r exam ple, the so-called A nglo-Saxon Chronicle
(which does n o t bear this title in its M S versions) began as annals like
A nnales Cambriae (955) in W ales. Only when its short annual entries grew
into detailed account o f events, the w ork approached the later idea o f
a chronicle as exemplified by De Gestis Regum Anglorum (1120) by W illiam
M alm esbury or by any o ther detailed presentation o f historical events in
chronological order. Still later the titles o f chronicle and history were given
to S hakespeare’s plays.
T h u s in 1598 the text was published o f The H istory o f H enry the
Fourth; with the battel at Shrewsburie, betweene the K ing and L o rd H enry
7
The same thing happened in other countries o f Europe. In Polish historia and kronika
are felt as singulars.
Percy surnam ed Henrie H otspur o f the North. With the humorous conceits
o f S ir John F alstaffe.8
O ther examples are: The Tragicall Historie o f H am let Prince o f D enm arke
(1603) and True Chronicle H istorie o f the life and deth o f K ing Lear and
his three Daughters. With the unfortunate life o f Edgar, sonne and heire to
the Earle o f Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humor o f Tom o f Bedlam
(1608).
T h e w ord H istorie referring to H am let assum es the m o d ern m eaning o f
story. T his process is to be observed elsewhere. In the R enaissance Polish
historya was used in non-historical context. C alling L ea r’s tragedy Chronicle
H istorie seems far-fetched in our times when Shakespearean studies have
lim ited the use o f these two w ords and even have distinguished chronicle
plays from history plays. But we should no t forget th at once th a t silly and
w ronged c h a rac te r was th o u g h t to be a historic ru ler in a h istorical
chronicle - H istoria Regum Britanniae (1135), th a t inexhaustible fountain
o f th e m ost im aginative range o f literary w orks o f E ngland dow n to T. H .
W h ite’s The Once and Future King (1958).
I should n o t like to leave the ancient and the m edieval w riters w ithout
m en tio n in g their ability to create original individual titles. A G reek tragedy
Seven against Thebes and A ristophanes’ com edy titles - Clouds, Frogs,
A Parliament o f Women - belong to these. T he m edieval Ormulum (O rm 's
L ittle Book, 1200) and L uv Ron (Love Rune, 1270) are ra th e r unexpected
and M arie de F ran ce seems to have anticipated sophisticated m odern
short-story writers with the titles o f her lays like Chievrfueil (The Honeysuckle)
and Laustic (The Nightingale). T hose titles have som e sym bolic quality
besides referring to a m aterial thing which belongs to the story.
T hey an ticip ate such unexpected titles as T . D e k k er’s The H onest Whore
(1604), T. H eyw ood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness (1607), F . B eau m o n t’s
The K night o f the Burning Pestle (1613) and such m odern titles as The
M oon and Sixpence, C akes and Ale, and The Painted Veil by Som erset
M aughm .
T hese are intriguing and puzzling titles. T heir function is not so m uch
to inform w hat the w ork is ab o u t as to m ake the prospective reader
w onder w hat they cover. T here is a touch o f sensational fiction ab o u t them
as in the titles o f The M ysteries o f Udolpho or The M ystery o f Edwin
Drood.
8
A convenient access to m any long, complete titles o f English literary works is to be
found in An Outline-H istory o f English Literature, vol. I and II by William B. Otis and Morris
H . N eedlem an (N ew York: Barnes and N ob le, 1960). F. E. H alliday’s A Shakespeare
Companion 1564-1964 (Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin B ooks, 1964), gives detailed information
about the bibliographical features o f the early printed Shakespearean texts o f plays.
ENG LISH DESCRIPTIVE TITLES
But when we look at the long history o f English literature (and o f other
literatures) we shall find th a t m ost titles were descriptive. T hey have been
m ad e to describe the contents o f the w orks they label. T he titles o f the
Shakespearean q u arto s of H enry I V and King Lear, quoted above, show
how aw kw ard descriptive titles m ay be.
On the o th er hand, intelligent authors, who have com plete m astery over
their m atter, are able to devise their titles very well.
T he descriptive titles probably developed under the influence o f H um anist
L atin and flourished in the R enaissance and in the seventeenth century.
One o f the earliest long and com plex English titles o f an allegorical
poem by Stephen H aw es runs like this:
The Passetym e o f Pleasure, or the H istorie o f Grande A m our and la bel
Pucel, conteining the knowledge o f the Seven Sciences and the Course o f
M a n 's Life in this Worlde (1506)
T h o u g h so early, the title sounds a m ixture o f G othic and B aroque,
alm ost as strange as the title o f a Polish encyclopedia com piled ab o u t the
m iddle o f the eighteenth century by F a th e r B enedykt Chm ielow ski and
called Nowe A teny, the com plete title o f which, in English, is: N ew Athens,
or an Academ y fu ll o f all Science, divided into sundry titles as i f into classes
as a M em orial fo r the Wise, Instruction fo r Idiots, Practice fo r Politicians,
E njoym ent fo r the Melancholic.
A n exam ple o f an early title, very exact in its description, is Sir T hom as
M o re’s Utopia. W ritten in Latin and published in 1515-1516, it had the
follow ing title:
Libellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus de optimo reipublicae
statu, deque nova Insula Utopia.
T his translated into English would be:
A Booklet truly Golden and no less useful than pleasant about the Best
S ta te o f Commonweal and about the newly discovered Island o f Utopia.
T h e title contains three bits o f inform ation. T he first, ab o u t the playful
seriousness o f the book; the second, about the discussion on the best system
o f governm ent; the third, ab o u t U topia.
It is a m asterpiece o f exactitude, for the book was a learned jo k e and
it treated separately ab o u t the foundation o f a perfect State and ab o u t
U to p ia as a possible realization o f the principles discussed in the first book.
T he subsequent reduction o f the title to the one-w ord title Utopia
introduced m isunderstanding. U to p ia becam e equated with the idea o f
ideal state, in spite o f the a u th o r’s reservations expressed tow ard the
end o f his book.
1 am enlarging on this subject, because sim ilar fate affected the reading
o f m an y o th e r im p o rta n t books. W hen we w ant to un d erstan d them
properly, we always should go to their original full titles.
A fter H aw es and M ore the practice o f descriptive or sum m arizing titles
becam e general. T he tendency to sum up the contents is obvious in Sir
W alter’s R aleigh’s A Report o f the Truth o f the Fight about the Isle o f
Agores, this lat sum m er betw ixt the Revenge, one o f her M ajesties Shippes,
and an A rm ada o f the King o f Spaine (1591), in his The D iscovery o f the
large, rich and beautiful Empire o f Guiana (1596). T he sam e m ay be said
a b o u t R ichard H a k lu y t’s national exploration saga Principall Navigations,
Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries o f the English N ation m ady by Sea or
Over L a n d to the Rem ote and Farthest D istant Quarters o f the Earth, at
any Tim e within the Compass o f these 1500 Years (1598-1599-1600).
T h e seventeenth century continued the practice o f the descriptive titles.
Jo h n B u nyan’s Pilgrim ’s Progress in its com plete form was: The Pilgrim 's
Progress fr o m This W orld to that Which is To Come delivered under the
sim ilitude o f a Dream wherein is discover'd, The M anner o f his Setting Out,
his Dangerous Journey and Safe Arrival at the Desired C ountry (1678).
A n o th er book by B unyan was: The H oly War, M ade by Shaddai Upon
Diabolus, For the Regaining o f the M etropolis o f the World. Or, The Losing
and Taking Again o f the Town o f M ansoul (1682).
"I he presence o f allegory in B unyan’s titles prevents them from revealing
the factual accounts presented in his books, but the tendency to m ake the
title a sum m ary is obvious in some titles o f the seventeenth century crim inal
pam phlets. One o f them bears the follow ing title:
The M o st Cruel and Bloody M urther com m ited by an Inkeeper’s Wife
called A nnis D ell and her Sonne, George Dell, Foure yeeres since. On the
bodie o f a Childe, Called Anthony lam es in Bishops H atfield in the Countie
o f H artford, and how m ost miraculously reuealed by the Sister o f the said
A nthony, who at the time o f the m urther had her tongue cut out and foure
years rem ayned dumme and speechlesse, and now perfectly speaketh, reueling
the M urther, having no tonge to be seen. With the several W itchcrafts and
m ost damnable practices o f one Iohane Harrison and her D aughter vpon
seueral persons, men and women at R oyston, who were all executed at
H a rtfo rd the 4 o f August last past, 1606.9
T his title seems to defeat its own purpose. It contains such a lot of
info rm atio n ab o u t the pam phlet o f 18 pages it advertises th a t the reader
m ight have satisfied his curiosity ab o u t the booklet w ithout buying it.
9
Cf. Joseph H. M arshbum and Alan R. Velie, Blood and Knavery: A Collection o f English
Renaissance Pamphlets and Ballads O f Crime and Sin (R utherford-M adison-Teaneck: Fairleigh
D ickinson University Press, 1973), p. 21.
But one can n o t say this ab o u t an o th er lengthy title o f crim inal records,
a kind o f m o n u m en tal British pitavai.
The N ew N ew gate Calendar being interesting m em oirs o f N otorious
Characters Who have been convicted o f Outrageous on the Law s o f England
during the seventeenth century, brought down to the present time. Chronologically
arranged. Com prising traitors, murderers, incendiaries, ravishers, pirates,
m utineers, coiners, highwaymen, footpads, housebreakers, rioters, extortioners,
sharpers, forgers, pickpockets, fraudulent bankrupts, m oney droppers, impostors,
and thieves o f every description. Containing also a numer o f interesting Cases
never before published; with occasional Essays on Crimes and Punishm ents,
Original Anecdotes, and observations on particular cases; explanations o f the
criminal laws, the speeches, confessions, and L ast Exclam ations o f Sufferers,
to which is added A correct Account o f the various M odes o f Punishment
o f Criminals in different Parts o f the W orld.10
T h e long descriptive titles continued in the fiction o f the eighteenth
century. Travels into Several R em ote N ations o f the W orld by L em uel
Gulliver (1726), The L ife and Strange surprising Adventures o f Robinson
Crusoe o f York, M ariner (1719) and The L ife and Opinions o f Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767) testify to the fact.
But even then a process o f reducing them to possibly sh o rt labels began.
W h a t we have got as a result, are: Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe and
Tristram S h a n d y.11
In the nineteenth century even som e great w riters had difficulties in
fo rm u latin g satisfactory titles and in em ancipating them selves from the
tra d itio n o f th e long descriptive headlines. W ho rem em bers now th a t
N icholas N ickleby (1838-1839) evolved from The L ife and Adventures o f
Nicholas N ickleby, Containing A Faithful Account o f the Fortunes, M isfortunes,
Uprising, Down-fallings and C omplete Career o f the N ickleby F am ily?
A nd who know s th a t the real title o f D avid Copperfield (1849-1850)
was: The Personal H istory, Experience and Observation o f D avid Copperfield
the Younger o f Blundersto n él12
W e know th a t D ickens strove for his titles with difficulty and even
w hen he finally chose one, it was not always fully satisfactory. O f the great
10 The title and edition was prepared bys “ Andrew K napp and W illiam Baldwin,
A ttornies o f Law .” The book was published in five volum es in L ondon and Liverpool in the
years 1808-1813(7).
11 The lengthy late Victorian title o f R. L. Stevenson’s Kidnapped being m em oirs o f the
adventures o f D avid Balfoor in the Year 1751 (1889), including in its follow ing lines a summary
o f the novel, is a literary a pastiche like Treasure Island.
12 Prof. Edward Chauncey Baldwin’s Introduction to an old American edition o f D avid
C opperfield by Scott, Foreman and Co. (C hicago-N ew York, 1910, p. 29), quotes six tentative,
rather awkward, titles invented by Dickens, o f which the last satisfied the novelist at last.
A recent publication o f Bleak House by Penguin Books shows another painful process o f choice.
D ickensian titles - D om bey and Son, Great Expectations - Bleak House
strikes one with an am biguity, because it sym bolizes, according to D ickens,
a fallen E ngland, and, at the sam e tim e, denotes the refuge o f all good
things th a t had been England - M r Jarn d y ce’s house and hom e.
W e shall yet return to the process o f abbreviating titles to a m inim um .
N ow let m e discuss a shorter type o f descriptive titles which m ight be
called double or dual. It consists o f two segments o f which each com plem ents
the other.
D O U B L E TITLES
C icero used this kind o f title at least twice - w hen he w rote Brutus,
sive de claris oratoribus and Orator, siva de optimo genere dicendi.
In the M iddle Ages the great F rench co n trib u to r to the A rth u ria n cycle,
C hretien de T royes, liked titles o f this kind. Lancelot ou le Chevalier a la
charette, Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion and Perceval ou le C onte du Graal
are examples.
In English literature we find exact copies o f this form o f title in The
Leviathan, or the M atter, Forme and Power o f a Commonwealth, ecclesiastical
and civill (1651) by T hom as H obbes, in Oroonoko, or the R o ya l Slave (1688)
by M rs A p h ra Behn, in Clarissa, or the H istory o f a Young L ady (1748)
and in Evelina, or The H istory o f a Young L ady's Entrance into the W orld
(1778) with this difference th at F anny Burney’s title is m uch m ore inform ative
th a n R ich ard so n ’s.
O ne o f the earliest and best-rem em bered double titles is The Unfortunate
Traveller, or The L ife o f Jack Wilson (1594) by T hom as N ashe - a pseudohistorical picaresque novel falling into a story o f h o rro r.
T h e double title was used for all kinds o f geners. W e find them am ong
plays and novels.
T h o m as O tw ay’s tragedy Venice Preserv'd or A Plot D iscover'd (1682),
The C om ical Revenge, or Love in a Tub (1664), a com edy o f m an n ers by
Sir G eorge Etherege, Jo h n D ry d e n ’s version o f A ntony and Cleopatra - A ll
For Love, or the W orld W ell L o st (1677) all carry on this type o f the title
to Sam uel R ich ard so n ’s Pamela, or Virtue Rew arded (1740), to W illiam
G o d w in ’s novel o f politics and crime: Things as they Are, or the Adventures
o f Caleb W illiam s (1794), and to M rs R adcliffe’s The Italian, or the
Confessional o f the Black Penitents (1797).
A m ong V ictorian novelists C harles K ingsley was alm ost an addict to
do u b le titles: Yeast, Or The Thoughts, Sayings, and Doings o f Lancelot
Sm ith, Gentleman (1848), H ypatia Or N ew Foes W ith A n O ld Face (1853),
W estw ard Ho! Or, The Voyages A n d Adventures o f Sir A m yas Leigh, Knight
(1855), The Heroes, Or Greek Fairy Tales For M y Children (1856) - one
m ight p ro long this list.
D o u b le titles ask for a special study. It is difficult to explain m otiv atio n
behind them. They function like two legs supporting and balancing each other.
But do they express an intention to show the them e under tw o aspects or
sim ply show hesitation in choice? T hey also m ay be an effect o f a tendency
to one-w ord titles, bu t explained - lest th e reader p u t a b o o k aside
which concealed its contents under bare, unknow n nam e o r suchlike w ord.
Som e do u b le titles stand on the verge o f turning into a title and subtitle
as m ay be seen in the tw o satires by J. D ryden. In M ac Flecknoe, or
a Sa tyre upon the True-Blew-Protestant Poet (1682) he used a double title,
b u t w hen he w rote The M edall. A Satyre against Sedition (1682), by
o m itting o r he divided the title into the m ain p art an d the su b o rd in ate
one which p artly functions as inform ation ab o u t the genre and p artly ab o u t
the th em e.13
W e m ay observe sim ilar am biguity in the revolutionary title o f W. M .
T h ac k era y ’s Vanity Fair, A N ovel W ithout a Hero. T he subtitle does no t
m erely define the genre o f the book, bu t also signals a new type o f a novel
th a t results from a new outlook.
SU B T IT L E S A N D SU PER TITLES
M o st subtitles seem to have been invented in th e tim es w hen an
innocent reader or theatre-goer had to be prepared by an act o f an ticipatory
in terp retatio n , to assim ilate a book o r a perform ance properly.
T o avoid m isu n derstanding let m e explain w hat I m ean. T h ro u g h o u t
the M iddle Ages and later tw o styles were recognized: the high and the
low. T he high style was p ro p e r for tragedies, the low - for com edies. But
a t a ra th e r prim itive perform ance the audience had to be w arned w hat
they were going to see and to react accordingly.14 T hence the subtitles
13 Charles K ingsley also uses double titles which turn into a title a subtitle: The W ater
Babies: A Fairy Tale f o r a Land-Baby (1863).
14 I remember two schoolgirls reacting to quite a good performance o f Romeo and Juliet
as if it were a comedy. They laughed all the time though without disturbing the audience,
silently wriggling on their seats. Their frame o f mind at that time forced them to see in the
tragedy a chain o f jokes. Out o f such point o f view burlesques o f m ost serious themes
generate. I m yself remember an amateur performance o f an unknown play about a spendthrift
son o f a miser, which was acted with such exaggeration that the audience roared with
laughter. Shakespeare knew som ething about it when he produced the tragedy ol Pyramus
and Thysbe in A M idsum mer Night's Dream.
tragedy an d comedy were needed. O r, they m ay have been directed to
inform the stage m anagers and actors in w hat style the play was to be
staged. T his guess should be substantiated or rejected.
M eanw hile, we can try to exam ine som e subtitles. W hen C h arlo tte
B ronte adds to her title Jane Eyre the subtitle A n A u to b io g rap h y (1847),
the subtitle prepares the reader for a personal story. B ut w hen she puts
A Tale after her Shirley (1849) there is no explanation why, ju st as there
is no explanation why G eorge M ered ith ’s Rhoda Fleming (1866) has been
called A S to ry in the subtitle, but his Diana o f the Crossways (1885)
- A Novel. But the sam e a u th o r m akes an im p o rtan t point when after The
Tragic Comedians (1880) he p u ts A Study in a Well-known Story, for the
subtitle is a key to the novel which presents the real story o f F erd in an d
Lassalle, the G erm an socialist, in love with a girl belonging to a different
social class and creed.
T h ere was little need for T h o m as H ard y to call his Desperate R em edies
(1871) A Novel, but when he entitled Under the Greenwood Tree or The
M ellsto ck Quire (1872) - A R ural Painting o f the D utch School - he
perfectly defined the genre o f the novel in the sense o f the co lo u r and
atm osphere.
W hen G eorge E liot explained th at M iddlemarch (1871) was a Sto ry o f
Provincial L ife, she pointed to the lim itations o f the social background o f
her ch aracters’ lives. W hen C harles R eade added to the title o f his The
Cloister and the H earth (1861) - A Tale o f the M iddle Ages, he inform ed
the read er th a t this was a historical novel.
Som etim es the au th o rs im ply a m ood o r atm osphere in their subtitles.
Stevenson called The M uster o f Ballantrae A W inter's Tale (1889). M aurice
H ew lett m ad e his Forest Lovers (1898) A Romance.
O ne o f the m ost original and inventive m akers o f subtitles was G . B.
Shaw. Superman (1903) was subtitled A Comedy and a Philosophy, H eartbreak
House (1919), A Fantasie in the Russian M anner on English Them es (alluding
to C hekhov), Saint Joan (1923) in the subtitle is called A Chronicle Play
in S ix Scenes and an Epilogue. The Apple Cart (1929) is m ean t to be
A Political Extravaganza.
All Shavian subtitles tend to signal a new dram atic variety in which
a k n o w n literary genre acquires fresh m eaning by infusion o f a new
m essage (cf. com edy plus philosophy). T his is also to be seen in the
ex trao rd in ary subtitle o f Back To M ethuselah (1920) - A M etabiological
Pentateuch.
W ith G . B. Show and his contem poraries we find ourselves n o t only
am o n g inventive subtitles, but also am ong supertitles.
T hey were used in A ntiquity. T he Biblical scholars tell us th a t in the
fifth century B.C. the H ebrew Tora or Pentateuch becam e the supertitle o f
the five books ascribed to M oses which, as 1 m entioned in the beginning
o f this paper, had their ow n separate titles. In the sam e century, exactly
speaking in 458 B.C., Aeschylus was aw arded a prize for three plays:
A gam em non, C hoefori, and Eum enides w hich were given th e su p crtitle
O resteia. 15
In the M iddle Ages and the R enaissance period only fram e-w ork stories
were given supertitles like Decamerone (1348-1356), The Canterbury Tales
(1387-1400) and H eptam eron (1558) by M argaret o f N avarre. T his also
happened to the stories retold by W illiam M orris under the supertitle o f
The Earthly Paradise (1868-1870).
In th e n in eteen th century Sir W alter S cott, w ho w rote his novels
anonym ously, felt the need to ascribe them to different fictions au th o rs
and therefore grouped them under a kind o f supertitles. Tales o f M y
Landlord, told by Jedediah C leishbotham , com prised The B lack D w a rf and
O ld M ortality, R ob Roy, The H eart o f M idlothian, The Bride o f Lam m erm oor
and The Legend o f M ontrose. The Tales o f Crusaders covered The B etrothed
and The Talisman. Chronicles o f Canongate com piled by an o th er fictitious
ch aracter - M r C hrystal C roftangry, residing at C anongate in E dinburgh,
include S co tt’s tw o best short-stories: Two Drovers and The H ighland
Widow besides The Surgeon’s Daughter, a novel ab o u t India and other
novels o f declining value - The Fair M a id o f Perth, Anne o f Geierstein,
Count Robert o f Paris and Castle Dangerous.
S upertitles ab o u n d w ith G . B. Shaw . F o r pu b lish in g pu rp o ses he
grouped his plays under the headings: Plays Unpleasant ( W idowers' Houses,
The Philanderer, M rs W arren's Profession), The Four Pleasant Plays (A rm s
and the M an, Candida, The M an o f Destiny, You N ever Can Tell) and three
Plays fo r Puritans (The D evil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra and Captain
Brassbound’s Conversion).
As with Scott, the grouping o f those plays is as arb itra ry as in The
Canterbury Tales. B ut it is a different m atter with Back To M ethuselah
which is the Shavian gospel teaching longevity as the way to m atu rity and
wisdom .
B ack to M ethuselah, A M etabiological Pentateuch is a cycle o f five plays
alluding m ainly to the Old T estam ent, bu t also to the N ew T estam ent in
its flight into the far-off future. T he supertitle covers the follow ing titles:
1. In the Beginning: B.C. (In the Garden o f Eden), 2. The Gospel o f the
Brothers Barnabas: Present Day, 3. The Thing Happens: A .D . 2170, 4.
Tragedy o f an Elderly Gentleman: A.D . 3000, 5. A s Far as Thought Can
Reach: A .D . 31.929.
15
Aeschylus got prizes for his earlier dramatic trilogy and tetralogy which probably had
their own supertitles.
T he style o f the plays varies from a m ystery play to contem porary
com edy and SF utopia, but the Shavian vision o f how m an k in d should
develop and his wit m ake the pentateuch o f plays one whole.
Shaw ’s playw right colleague Jo h n G alsw orthy, who is best know n as
th e a u th o r o f The F orsyte Saga, also used supertitles. As he him self
stated, this title o f his best know n work, which was m eant to label The
M a n o f Property, gradually grew into a supertitle covering three novels:
The M an o f Property, In Chancery, and To L et, linked by tw o sh o rter
and m ore m icroscopic “ interludes” - Indian Sum m er o f a Forsyte and
A w akening.16
The Forsyte Saga (1921) continued as A Modern Comedy (1929) - a trilogy
consisting o f The White M onkey, The Silver Spoon and Sw an Song, again
linked by tw o “ interludes” .
T he chain o f trilogies under supertitles was prolongued by the great
fairy epic o f J. R. R. Tolkien: The L ord o f the Rings (1938-1939) which
consists o f The Fellowship o f the Ring, The Two Towers, and The R eturn
o f the King.
L aurence D urrell continued the custom with The A lexandria Q uartet
{Justine, Balthazar, Clea, M ountolive, 1957-1960), and Stephen L aw head has
m ain tain ed the trad itio n o f 1 olkien by w riting the Pendragon cycle o f
historicised A rth u ria n legend in four parts: Taliesin, M erlin, A rthur and
Pendragon (1987-1990).
SH O R T ID E O P H O R IC , SY M B O L IC A N D Q U O T A T IO N TITLES
W ithin the area and in the history o f the M editerranean C ivilization
sh o rt one-w ord o r tw o-w ord titles seem to have passed the test o f time
best. T hey are short, simple, easy to rem em ber and functional fo r the
p u rp o ses o f readers, literary critics and librarians. Som e o f them are
prim eval, som e have com e into existence by a reduction o f long, descriptive
titles, som e others have been coined by present-day w riters. All o f them
show interesting varieties and differences.
M an y o f them , including the oldest ones, are eponym ous: Gilgamesh,
Jonah, R uth, Eneid, Beowulf, Erec et Enide, Troylus and Criseyde, Rom eo
and Juliet, R ob R oy, Don Juan, M rs Dalloway...
Som e eponym ous titles, either because o f their form o r a generic
ad junct, signify a genre: Odyssey, Eneid, The B ook o f Job, Chanson de
Roland, Nibelungenlied, Poema del Cid. Some others concentrate on a special
16
Cf. Author's Preface to the one-volum e edition o f The Forsyte Saga (N ew York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961).
aspect o f the hero by adding an adjective to his nam e: Orlando Furioso,
Sam son Agonistes, Prometheus Unbound.
In the ancient G reek literature one-word titles are equally distributed
am ong various genres: Ilias and Odysseia are epics; Oresteia, Electra, Persai
- dram as; Kriton, Phaidon and Phaidros belong to philosophical dialogues.
Som e o th er titles, like H esiod’s Theogonia and A risto tle’s Physika and
P olitika, belong to one-w ord ideophoric titles.17
Ideophoric titles are vehicles for conveying ideas o r signalling certain
realm s o f ideas. T he title Theogony suggests birth and genealogy o f
gods ju s t as th e Gospel suggests the m essage o f C h rist. It is w orth
m en tio n in g here th a t the term Euaggelion i.e. Good N ew s, chosen by
Jesus for his teaching becam e in the second century a synonym o f a book
w ritten ab o u t C h rist’s teaching. In this way the m essage or set o f ideas
becam e the title o f four canonical and som e apocryphal w orks on this
subject.
T he sh o rt titles, prevalent in the tw entieth century, present exciting and
very com plex sem antic problem s. Let us first look at them in the perspective
o f h isto ry .18
W hen we have a title like The L ife and . . . Adventures . . . o f Robinson
Crusoe, the atten tio n o f the reader is naturally focussed on the story or
action in the book. W hen the title has been reduced to Robinson Crusoe,
the focus shifts to the character. T hus the shortening o f the title inclines
the reader to think m uch m ore ab o u t the hero o f the story th an ab o u t
anything else. T he fact th at the general practice has sim plified the titles o f
the m ajority o f the eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction has had an
im p o rta n t psychological effect on th eir reception. It has stressed the
p ersonal and psychological elem ent o f the fictional biographies w hich m ost
novels o f these tw o centuries were. T he m ovem ent was tow ards psychology:
tow ards L o rd Jim , M rs Dalloway, Ulysses.
A n o th er m ovem ent, though not so easily exemplified, has been from
the ch aracter to the problem , or m essage, or an idea.
Let m e illustrate it by discussing the titles o f Jan e A ustein. Even as
a young girl, when she w rote Love and Friendship, she was interested in
11
1 am indebted for these and follow ing titles to a collective book D zieje literatur
europejskich 1 (A H istory o f European Literature 1), ed. by W ładysław Floryan (Warszawa:
P1W, 1977) which presents, besides the literatures o f Greece and Rome, all literatures written
in Rom ance languages. M y other source was Słownik pisarzy antycznych (A D ictionary o j
Ancient W riters) ed. by Anna Świderkówna (Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1990).
18
1 have used as my reference for authors, titles and dates: Everyman's D ictionary of
L itera ry Biography (1960), Annals o f English Literature 1475-1950 (1961), The O xford
Companion to English Literature (1958), The Concise Cambridge Bibliography o f English
Literature 600-1950 (1966), The Present Age in British Literature (1959) by D . D aiches and
my own library.
hu m an relationship. H er Pride and Prejudice (w ritten in 1796) had as its
first title First Impressions. W hen she was writing an o th er novel, she
th o u g h t nam ing it Elinor and M arianne, but changed it for Sense and
Sensibility (1797). H er last novel was Persuasion (1815). O ne o f her novels
only is eponym ous: Em m a (1814) and tw o others point to a setting and
everything th at it m eans: Northanger Abbey (1797) and M ansfield Parle
(1811).19
Jan e A u stein’s interest in interpersonal relations was later reflected in
D . H . L aw rence’s Sons and Lovers (1913) and in Ivy C o m p to n B arn e tt’s
Pastors and M asters (1924), M en and Wives (1931), A Fam ily and a Fortune
(1939), Parents and Children (1941), Elders and Betters (1944) and in all
the rest o f her novels.
I he third m ovem ent in titles has been tow ards sym bolic titles.
It is, perhaps, unexpected th at titles referring to places tend tow ards
sym bolism . The M ysteries o f Udolpho (1794) m akes the castle in the
A pennines sym bolic o f tyranny and crime. Northhanger A bbey stands for
ridiculous ro m an tic associations with the M inerva Press fiction. The H eart
o f M idlothian (1818) is very rich in its sym bolism ; it denotes the city prison
in E dinburgh, the city itself as the heart o f Scotland and its greatest h eart
- the heroine who was ready to walk all the way to L o n d o n to ask for
m ercy for her guilty, m isguided sister.
W e easily realize how sym bolic is the title Wuthering H eights (1847).
B leak H ouse (1852-1853), in spite o f its p artial co n trad ictio n , is an o th er
title o f this kind and so the titles go to Howards E nd (1910).
Sym bolic becom e other titles referring to the a u th o r’s message: Joseph
C o n ra d ’s H eart o f Darkness (1902), Victory (1915) with its glorification o f
spiritual values in the situation o f physical defeat and Shadow L ine (1917)
w hich signifies crossing the eq u a to r and the crisis o f m aturity; T . F.
Pow ys’s M r W eston’s Good Wine (1928) m eans death as G o d ’s good cheer;
Jam es H ilto n ’s L ost H orizon (1933) is a rem inder o f the lost m oral and
spiritual bearings.
Jo h n G alsw orthy also used sym bolic titles: The W hite M o nkey, The
Silver Spoon, Swan Song. These titles are allusive: to a picture o f an anim al,
to a proverbial phrase ab o u t som ebody’s birth to prosperity, to a final
achievem ent before death.
W ith these titles we face a new problem o f their function. T hey do n o t
so m uch explain w hat is the m ain subject o f the literary w ork they label
as ra th e r vaguely allude to its general sense and m eaning. O ne step m ore
It is to be noted that Scott, her contemporary, alm ost always concentrates on the
character, using eponym ous titles. It would be interesting to find out why som e Victorians,
especially Dickens, went back for long descriptive titles when they had such neat Rom antic
m odels like the tw o novelists discussed.
aw ay from them leads to titles, w hose function is to intrigue and puzzle,
and to ciphered titles.
T h e ability to read such titles with understanding presupposes w idesp­
read literary o rientation. M ost o f them appeared in the tw entieth century
along w ith expanding extention o f com pulsory education and grow ing
“ hig h -b ro w ” criticism o f w riters and critics. But som e o f the allusive titles
occurred in the past. The Pearl, an anonym ous poem o f the fourteenth
century alludes to the S criptural parable o f a pearl sym bolizing the inner
K ingdom o f H eaven. T h ack eray ’s Vanity Fair (1847-1848) alludes to The
P ilgrim ’s Progress and expresses the novelist’s criticism o f social life. As
for Sam uel B utler’s satirical autobiographical novel The W ay o f A ll Flesh
(1903), there is no d o u b t th a t its title is a hebraicism . But it is difficult
to trace it to the Bible. H ow ever, The First Epistle o f St. Peter m ay give
the idea o f its sense: “ All flesh is as grass and all the glory o f m an as
the flower o f grass. T he grass w ithereth, and the flower th ere o f falleth
aw ay” (I P eter 1,24). But the phrase “ the way o f all flesh” in its exact
form appears outside the Bible: in J. W ebster’s The Duchess o f M a lfi
(1623): “ I saw him even now going the way o f all flesh” ; in T h o m as
ShadwelPs com edy Sullen Lovers (1688): “Tis the way o f all flesh” and in
an o th er play - Squire B ickersta ff D etected - ascribed to W illiam Congreve:
“ A lack, h e’s gone the way o f all flesh” . In all these texts the phrase implied
d eath.
1 wish to show here how difficult m ay it be to find reference to a title
which is a quote.
T h e Bible, Shakespeare and o ther great poets are the m ost frequented
sources o f q u o tatio n titles. Jo h n R uskin’s Unto the L ast (1860) refers
to the w ords o f the lord o f the vineyard: “ I will give unto this last,
even as u nto th ee” (M at. 20,14) - an idea which R uskin applied to
eco nom y, aro u sin g pro tests. T h e title o f J. A . C ro n in ’s The K eys o f
the Kingdom obviously refers to the priestly office o f St. P eter in M at.
16,19.
M ilto n ’s Paradise L o st is quoted in Precious Bane (1924) by M ary W ebb
and im plies cond em n ation o f the riches th at grow in hell, Sam son Agonistes
has suggested to V ictoria Sackville-W est the title A ll Passion Spent (1931),
a novel ab o u t the calm o f the old age, and to A. H uxley - the title o f
E yeless in Gaza (1936) which refers to Sam son “a t the m ill w ith slaves”
- the co n d itio n o f m an in m o d ern times.
M ac b eth ’s m onologue beginning with “T o-m orrow and to -m o rro w ” and
ending w ith “ Signifying n o th in g ” becam e the source o f R ose M ac au lay ’s
T old by A n Idiot (1923), o f W. H. F au lk n er’s The Sound and the Fury
(1929) and o f A. H uxley’s B rie f Candles (1930) just as Brave New W orld
(1932) ironically refers to M ira n d a ’s ignorance expressed in: “ O brave new
W orld T h a t has such people in’t ” (The Tempest, V ,l).
In Jam es B arrie’s Dear Brutus (1917) the title m ay be deciphered by
reference to Julius Caesar (1,2) where we read: “T he fault, d ear B rutus, is
n o t in o u r stars But in ourselves th at we are underlings.”
A n o th er com edy by the sam e playw right - The Admirable Crichton
(1903) sym bolically alludes to a historic gallant Scotsm an o f m any talents,
Jam es C richton (1560-1585?).
S. M au g h a m ’s The Painted Veil (1925) derives from Shelley’s first w ords
o f a sonnet: “ Lift n o t the painted veil which those w ho live C all L ife.”
C akes and Ale (1930), an o th er novel by the sam e w riter, reveals its m essage
w hen we trace its title to Twelfth N ight (2,3): “ D ost th o u think, because
th o u are virtuous, there shall be no m ore cakes and ale?”
M o st q u o tatio n titles are to rn out o f their original context and therefore
intrigue the reader. A phrase from H am let’s best know n m onologue: “T he
undiscovered country from whose bourne N o traveller re tu rn s” has been
p artitio n ed betw een Stephen M e K e n n a who w rote The Undiscovered
C ountry and J. A usländer who w rote N o Traveller Returns. B oth refer to
d eath and the otherw orld.20
In the early tw entieth century some writers used as titles q u o tatio n s
from their contem poraries, which shows how self-contained literary circles
were. I . S E liot, who - by the way — is m ost prolific in using q u o tatio n s
as m o tto es to his poem s, to o k The Waste L a n d (1922) from Jessie L.
W eston s book From R itual to Rom ance (1920) which, together w ith Jam es
G . F ra z e rs The Golden Bough (1915) excited the m inds o f English intellectuals
w ith its m ythical-antropological interp retatio n o f religion and literature.
Som e years later Evelyn W augh published A H andful o f D ust (1934) which
takes its title from T. S. E lio t’s W aste Land'. “ I will show you fear in
a handful o f d u st.” B oth titles are ideophoric in their m eaning and function.
I am com ing to the close o f these notes. I hope th at they will help
m y readers to becom e m ore conscious o f the im portance o f the exact
read in g o f the title o f each literary w ork. It is im p o rtan t to read each
title in its full form , as it was designed by the au th o r. G. K . C h esterto n ’s
The M an Who Was Thursday is a catch title w ithout its subtitle: The
Nightmare, which is the key to understanding o f the sense and the com position
o f the b o o k .21
W hile com plete understanding o f a literary w ork is conditioned by the
full u n d ersta n d in g o f its title, w ith the grow ing so p h istic atio n o f the
au th o rs, it is n o t an easy task. T hen putting together the contents and the
20 Outlines o f Shakespeare's P lays (College Outline Series) by H. A . Watt, K. J. H olzknecht
and R. R oss (N ew York: Barnes and N oble, 1957) enumerates over 100 titles, American and
British, being quotations from Shakespeare, but this is not a com plete list.
21 Cf. my “ The Man Who Was Thursday, or D etection W ithout Crime,” in: L itterae et
Lingua in honorem Prem islai M roczkow ski (Krakow: P A N , 1984).
title m ay help. T his is the case with The Five Red. Herrings (1931) by
D o ro th y L. Sayers the m eaning o f which is “ five false clues” and with her
The Nine Tailors (1934) - the title which refers to bells.
But these cryptic titles arc sim ple riddles in com parison with, say, Iris
M u rd o c h ’s The Bell (1958) or A Severed H ead (1961) which presented
difficulty even to W alter A llen.22
A nd we should no t forget th at som etim es the w ork slips, so to speak,
o u t the a u th o r’s hands after he fixed his title and does n o t follow either
the original design o f its title.
One o f the masterpieces o f the Polish novel is Lalka ( The Doll, 1887-1889)
by Bolesław Prus, the com position o f which rem inds th a t o f M iddlemarch.
T h e nucleus o f the novel was a real incident - a trial o f a p o o r young
w idow accused, on an unfounded suspicion, o f having stolen a costly doll
for her daughter. But the novel grew into som ething m ore th an M iddlemarch
- into a great epic p an o ram a o f social life o f a w hole country, against
which the central ch aracter wasted his energy and fortune in trying to win
the love o f a doll-like aristocratic girl. T his conditioned the public reception
o f the book. Its title is referred to the girl, perhaps w ithout full justification.
Similarly, the action o f M rs G askell’s M ary Barton, A Tale o f M anchester
L ife (1848) went slightly aw ry and the novel is m uch less a story ab o u t
M ary B arto n th an a tale o f industrial unrest.
It is also im p o rtant to understand the function o f the title, conditioned
by its fo rm u latio n and its period. It is im p o rtan t th a t we m ight classify
titles according to their origin, form and function. T h a t is why I have
tak en liberty to suggest a range o f term s which point to distinctive aspects
o f the titles used in the course o f E uro p ean history. F u rth e r investigation,
by o ther scholars I hope, should extend the m aterial, correct m y observations
and ju stify o r reject m y conclusions.
SU G G E ST E D C LA SSIFICA TIO N O F TITLES
F irst-w o rd titles, eponym ous titles, generic titles, periphrastic titles,
descriptive titles, double titles, ideophoric titles, sym bolic titles, q u o tatio n
titles, long titles, sh ort titles, subtitles, supertitles.
Departm ent o f English Literature and Culture
University o f Łódź
22
Cf. Walter A llen,
pp. 303-304.
Tradition and D ream (H arm ondsworth: Penguin B ooks,
1964),
W itold Ostrowski
TYTU ŁY I PO DTYTUŁY;
W ST Ę PN E NOTATKI N A TEM AT ICH H IST O R II I FUNK CJI
Esej posługuje się przykładem powieści A. J. Cronina G w iazdy patrzą na nas, której tytuł
jest cytatem z m ało znanego wiersza M atthew Arnolda, żeby udow odnić jak ważne jest
zrozum ienie sensu tytułu dla zrozumienia powieści. O dszyfrowany tytuł nadaje tej powieści
0 walce górników o chleb i bezpieczeństwo głębię chrześcijańskiego komentarza.
Autor stwierdza, że spośród paratekstów literackich takich jak dedykacje, m otta, przedmowy
1 posłow ia, przypisy, aneksy, glosariusze, kolofony i inne dodatki do głów nego tekstu, tytuł
jest najważniejszy.
W poszukiw aniu różnych rodzajów tytułów należy sięgnąć d o przeszłości cywilizacji
śródziemnomorskiej - do starożytnego Egiptu, Babilonu, Izraela, Grecji i Rzymu.
Trudno się zorientować co do formy tytułów egipskich tam, gdzie zachowały się raczej
końcow e kolofony, czasem zawierające streszczenia księgi. N atom iast z całą pew nością m ożna
stwierdzić, że Babilończycy i Izraelczycy najpierw używali tytułów stanowiących pierwsze słowa
tekstu. Później rozwinęły się tytuły eponimiczne czyli odimienne i gatunkow e - pieśń, psalm ,
kronika.
Grecy wymyślili tytuły peryfrastyczne, zaczynające się od peri, czego odpowiednikiem
u Rzymian było de. 1 en typ tytułów został przyjęty przez całą Europę używającą łaciny.
Rzym ianie dali językom europejskim wyraz tytuł, przekazali ponadto grecką historię i kronikę,
których znaczenie wyszło daleko poza ich pierwotny zakres.
W następnej kolejności autor om aw ia długie tytuły opisow e, wykorzystując głów nie
materiał angielski, od renesansu do X IX w. Niektóre z nich są streszczeniami tekstów.
Zbliżone do nich są tytuły podwójne, widoczne już u Cycerona i w średniowieczu, jak
P erceval ou le Conte du Graal. W literaturze angielskiej występują obficie w X V II, XVIII
i X IX w. Od nich tylko krok do podtytułów i ich funkcji oraz d o nadtytułów , takich jak
Pięcioksiąg, Oresteia, Saga rodu Forsytów, nadtytułów G . B. Shawa i J. R. R. Tolkiena.
O m ów iono tendencję X X w. d o tytułów krótkich, ruch w kierunku przesunięcia uwagi
z fabuły na głów ną postać, a z postaci na stosunki m iędzyosobowe, co widać już było u Jane
Austen. Zmienia się funkcja informacyjna tytułu na intrygującą i powstaje chęć wyrażenia idei
lub przesłania utworu, co widać w tytułach symbolicznych i cytatowych, zwłaszcza wziętych
z Biblii lub z Szekspira.