Table of Contents1
In these first pages of our manual I am going to analyze some fundamental assumptions about electronic literature, as if it is a machine waiting to be turned on. First of all, I think it’s necessary to affirm one main point: literature has to do with texts, created with a markedly artistic and literary purpose – being them prose or verse.  ”Text” is a broad concept, and the reason for this lies in the very nature of the components of texts, that is: words. They give and ask for freedom, creativity, multiformity. Thus, as literature deals with texts, electronic literature can still be considered literature because it still deals with texts, even though their layouts and outputs are not responding to the same expectations as one usually has in front of what is generally considered literature, that is a book.
In these first pages of our manual I am going to analyze some fundamental assumptions about electronic literature, as if it is a machine waiting to be turned on. First of all, I think it’s necessary to affirm one main point: literature has to do with texts, created with a markedly artistic and literary purpose – being them prose or verse.  ”Text” is a broad concept, and the reason for this lies in the very nature of the components of texts, that is: words. They give and ask for freedom, creativity, multiformity. Thus, as literature deals with texts, electronic literature can still be considered literature because it still deals with texts, even though their layouts and outputs are not responding to the same expectations as one usually has in front of what is generally considered literature, that is a book.2
Behind this apparently innocuous association there lies a sort of short circuit: the freedom given by words to the texts they compound is somehow hindered by the material rendering of it: what we call “book” is tightly knitted to the idea of text and literature. I could see it myself many times: whenever I talk about electronic literature with someone who has never heard anything about it, the first thing that comes into her mind is: e-book, as if the prefix “e” translates “electronic” (which makes sense) and “book” translates “literature” (which does not make so much sense).
Behind this apparently innocuous association there lies a sort of short circuit: the freedom given by words to the texts they compound is somehow hindered by the material rendering of it: what we call “book” is tightly knitted to the idea of text and literature. I could see it myself many times: whenever I talk about electronic literature with someone who has never heard anything about it, the first thing that comes into her mind is: e-book, as if the prefix “e” translates “electronic” (which makes sense) and “book” translates “literature” (which does not make so much sense).3
Before going any further into electronic literature, I’d like to explain why this association – as not absolutely wrong as it can be – still presents us with some difficulties. The first thing we have to do is thus to liberate literature from the idea of print connected with it, so to free the text from the tyranny of ink and paper. As Katherine Hayles points out in “My mother was a computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts”, one merit electronic literature must be assigned to in this sense is that it uses a completely new format to give the audience a literary text:
Before going any further into electronic literature, I’d like to explain why this association – as not absolutely wrong as it can be – still presents us with some difficulties. The first thing we have to do is thus to liberate literature from the idea of print connected with it, so to free the text from the tyranny of ink and paper. As Katherine Hayles points out in “My mother was a computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts”, one merit electronic literature must be assigned to in this sense is that it uses a completely new format to give the audience a literary text:4
It is time for a Copernican revolution in our thinking about textuality [. . .] it is clear that one medium – print – provides the baseline for the definitions [. . .] Thinking of the text as “the order of words and punctuation” is as print-centric a definition as I can imagine.
It is time for a Copernican revolution in our thinking about textuality [. . .] it is clear that one medium – print – provides the baseline for the definitions [. . .] Thinking of the text as “the order of words and punctuation” is as print-centric a definition as I can imagine.5
The Copernican revolution Hayles is referrring to shows two things: first of all, that literature is ready to face a technological revolution, renewing itself through other formats, and that today we still have to wonder about traditional questions on literature, that is, what makes a text “literary”, that is, what are the characteristics has to have in order to be considered as “literature”. And of course, being a book is not enough.
The Copernican revolution Hayles is referrring to shows two things: first of all, that literature is ready to face a technological revolution, renewing itself through other formats, and that today we still have to wonder about traditional questions on literature, that is, what makes a text “literary”, that is, what are the characteristics has to have in order to be considered as “literature”. And of course, being a book is not enough.6
Quoting Hayles again, I’d like to give you her definition of electronic literature: “Electronic literature, generally considered to exclude print literature that has been digitized, is by contrast “digital born”, a first generation digital object created on a computer and (usually) meant to be read on a computer”.
Quoting Hayles again, I’d like to give you her definition of electronic literature: “Electronic literature, generally considered to exclude print literature that has been digitized, is by contrast “digital born”, a first generation digital object created on a computer and (usually) meant to be read on a computer”.7
This is the reason why electronic literature has little to do with ebooks or ereaders: they are new technological interpretations of paper books, a sort of natural evolution steaming from it as happened from parchment to paper. Speaking of electronic literature, we refer to something meant to be created and read on a computer.
This is the reason why electronic literature has little to do with ebooks or ereaders: they are new technological interpretations of paper books, a sort of natural evolution steaming from it as happened from parchment to paper. Speaking of electronic literature, we refer to something meant to be created and read on a computer.9
- “With electronic texts there is a conceptual distinction – and often an actualized one – between storage and delivery vehicles”;
- “Electronic text exists as a distributed phenomenon”;
- “Although print readers perform sophisticated cognitive operations when they read a book, the printed lines exist as such before the book is opened”;
- “[. . .] It would be more accurate to call an electronic text a process rather than an object”.
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The last point is particularly important because it underlines a basic principle of electronic literature and reminds of Espen Aarseth’s “Cybertext. Perspectives on Electronic Literature”, a masterpiece in that field of studies. In his book he develops two fundamental concepts, that is cybernetics and ergodic literature, showing that even though electronic literature finds its root in the age of print, the invention of database, code and computer have given birth to a new literary phenomenon that renews the tradition of paper literature with a new attitude towards text.
The last point is particularly important because it underlines a basic principle of electronic literature and reminds of Espen Aarseth’s “Cybertext. Perspectives on Electronic Literature”, a masterpiece in that field of studies. In his book he develops two fundamental concepts, that is cybernetics and ergodic literature, showing that even though electronic literature finds its root in the age of print, the invention of database, code and computer have given birth to a new literary phenomenon that renews the tradition of paper literature with a new attitude towards text.12
the mechanical organization of the text, by positing the intricacies of the medium as an integral part of the literary exchange. [. . .] it also centers attention on the consumer, or user, of the text, as a more integrated figure that even reader-response theorists would claim.
the mechanical organization of the text, by positing the intricacies of the medium as an integral part of the literary exchange. [. . .] it also centers attention on the consumer, or user, of the text, as a more integrated figure that even reader-response theorists would claim. 13
Thus, cybertext is more than a mere series of words, it is a perspective on text itself and on how it starts a feedback loop between reader and author. Just like Hayles said, Aaresth believes that print has a monopole on literature and that it is time to wake up from this status of “ideological blindness” in which literature and literary criticism have fallen. Textology and textonomy will be the weapons with which the revolution of electronic literature will be fought.
Thus, cybertext is more than a mere series of words, it is a perspective on text itself and on how it starts a feedback loop between reader and author. Just like Hayles said, Aaresth believes that print has a monopole on literature and that it is time to wake up from this status of “ideological blindness” in which literature and literary criticism have fallen. Textology and textonomy will be the weapons with which the revolution of electronic literature will be fought.14
The other term Aarseth introduces in his analysis is ergodic literature. It isn’t a historic category but it refers to that kind of literature in which “nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text”. On the contrary, nonergodic literature just asks the reader to follow the lines until they end and turn the page, in a more or less sequential order, and that’s it. Aaresth makes a list of examples of ergodic literature: I Ching, Rayuela by J. Cortázar, Cent Milliard de Poèmes by R. Queneau and many tales by J. L. Borges such as El JardÃn de Senderos Que Se Bifurcan. What do they have in common? They all are literary challenges for their composite nature and for the effort a reader has to make not just to read but also to interact with them. Between reader and text there exist a sort of literary exchange, a frantic semantic loop, a rapid input/output response that way before computers showed up already existed in literature.
The other term Aarseth introduces in his analysis is ergodic literature. It isn’t a historic category but it refers to that kind of literature in which “nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text”. On the contrary, nonergodic literature just asks the reader to follow the lines until they end and turn the page, in a more or less sequential order, and that’s it. Aaresth makes a list of examples of ergodic literature: I Ching, Rayuela by J. Cortázar, Cent Milliard de Poèmes by R. Queneau and many tales by J. L. Borges such as El JardÃn de Senderos Que Se Bifurcan. What do they have in common? They all are literary challenges for their composite nature and for the effort a reader has to make not just to read but also to interact with them. Between reader and text there exist a sort of literary exchange, a frantic semantic loop, a rapid input/output response that way before computers showed up already existed in literature.