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From page to screen : placing hypertext fiction in an historical and contemporary context of print and electronic literary experiments
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Linnemann, Martina E. (1999) From page to screen : placing hypertext fiction in an historical and contemporary context of print and electronic literary experiments. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b1368190~S15
Abstract
Only recently has our perception of the computer, now a familiar and ubiquitous element of
everyday life, changed from seeing it as a mere tool to regarding it as a medium for creative
expression. Computer technologies such as multimedia and hypertext applications have
sparked an active critical debate not only about the future of the book format, ("the late age
of print" {Bolter} is only one term used to describe the shift away from traditional print
media to new forms of electronic communication) but also about the future of literature.
Hypertext Fiction is the most prominent of proposed electronic literary forms and strong
claims have been made about it: it will radically alter concepts of text, author and reader,
enable forms of non-linear writing closer to the associative working of the mind, and make
possible reader interaction with the text on a level impossible in printed text.
So far the debate that has attempted to put hypertext fiction into a historical perspective
has linked it to two developments. Firstly the developments in computer technology that
made hypertext not only possible but also widely accessible and secondly a tradition of
postmodern theory, where characteristics attributed to hypertext echo concepts of
fragmentation, multiplicity and instability that theorists like Barthes and Derrida have
formulated previously and that have led to the notion of hypertext as an "authentic, yet
functional postmodern form" {Roberts}
A third element that is not generally subject to critical evaluation is the practice of
(post)modern writing in which a number of authors consciously break with the linearity of
print conventions in favour for a more fragmented narrative and presentation as well as
actively inviting the reader's participation in what Barthes calls "writerly" text. There are two
reasons why these "proto-hypertexts" have been widely ignored or dismissed: Hypertext is
still widely define as exclusive to the electronic realm and is furthermore generally
perceived in oppositional pairs in contrast to print, i.e. non-linear vs. linear and interactive
vs. passive, which conceptually does not leave room for a study of an "evolution" out of
existing forms of writing practice.
By examining hypertext fiction in a context of print experiments (Cortazar, Borges, B.S.
Johnson, Andreas Okopenko, Raymond Queneau, Miroslav Pavic, Italo Calvino) and also in
a context of other forms of digital literary experimentation (collaborative projects and
computer-generated writing), this thesis aims to, on a diachronic level, reincorporate
hypertext fiction into an evolutionary (though radical) literary tradition and examines the
manner in which concepts which originated in this tradition have been taken over often
very literally and without much redefinition. On the a-historical, synchronic level, this study
explores some of the possible formats for literature in the new electronic textual media:
hypertext fiction, collaborative writing projects, computer-generated writing and the
different challenges these present to our understanding ofliterature.
After an introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and 3 discuss two of the keywords of
hypertext theory, its "grand narratives' (non-linearity and interactivity) and the
appropriation of the terminology to hypertext theory and to hypertext fiction. Chapter 4
and 5 will look at alternative, though related, approaches to electronic fiction: Chapter 4 will
examine aspects of collaborative writing in both a print and a digital environment while
computer-generated writing stands at the centre of Chapter 5.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Hypertext fiction, Computers and literacy | ||||
Official Date: | June 1999 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Bassnett, Susan | ||||
Extent: | 255 p. | ||||
Language: | eng |
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