To determine the significance andpotential of the conceptof theparatext for literature and cultural and media studies, it makes sense to start at a more basic level, namely, with the concept of the text, towhichparatext acts as a supplement. Adorno thought it an “abominable expression” to refer to phenomena of “literature” as “texts.” He detected in it an abandonment of the category of the work. Dolf Sternberger, his antipodean intellectual colleague in Frankfurt, offered a similar opinion that differed only in tone: “‘Texts’—this has become the universal generic term for the products of writers, or at any rate, the term now considered ‘progressive’. . . . They do not write poems, novels, essays or even stories—they ‘produce texts.’” These arguments and idiosyncratic reactions are now history. In themeantime text has gained wide acceptance—and why shouldn’t this be the case? But in view of how the meaning of this term has developed over the years, the old objections would seem to warrant some thought. In the course of things, text has come to be used synonymously with the older term work (opus). In many respects the current definition with all its implications of aesthetics and values has simply been inherited. However, text originally had another meaning; it is not just a coincidence that it was introduced at a time when the concept of literature was being expanded to include trivial literature, essays, and general nonfiction and when there was a growing interest in the phenomena of popular culture. Since then, literary and cul-