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Chapter 24 - Dictionaries as Literary Artifacts

from Part IV - Dictionaries and Domains of Use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2024

By
Ilan Stavans
Edited by
Edward Finegan  and
Michael Adams
Edward Finegan
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Michael Adams
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Summary

Dictionaries are works of literature: they have an author, a plot, and a narrative. They have also been the object of fascination of writers–poets, novelists, and essayists– from diverse languages, from Ambrose Bierce, Jorge Luis Borges, Denis Diderot, and Gustave Flaubert, to Czeslaw, George Orwell, George Perec, William Thackery, and Voltaire. At times, the structure of a lexicon is emulated in a work of fiction; in others, it is at the heart of a storyline. This meditation explores the wide range of tributes dictionaries have occasioned as well as volumes about the making of specific lexicons, such as the Oxford English Dictionary.

Keywords

BierceBorgesFrench EncyclopédistesFlaubertMiłoszOrwellPerecThackery
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Handbook of the Dictionary , pp. 481 - 492
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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