Lily Week 3: Hypertext
After reading the chapter, it is clear that hypertext fiction is one of the foundational genres of electronic literature. I really enjoyed how he explored the conflicts of nonlinear narrative structures and the way that hypertext challenges traditional methods of storytelling. Hypertext’s popularity has declined with increased access to the internet as well as social media and varied forms of online text. However, Rettberg still argues that hypertext remains an important literary form that continues to influence digital narratives. By clicking on links and navigating nonlinearly, readers get to interact with text in an engaging way, helping to eliminate the passive consumption of traditional literature. The introduction of this engagement has created an expectation for information to be presented in an interactive way. Traditional literature is slowly being further rejected from younger generations due to this, encouraging the next generation of writers to think outside the box.
I chose to explore Micheal Joyce’s afternoon, a story, which is one of the first famous uses of hypertext. While exploring the website it became immediately clear that the technology was quite outdated and difficult to navigate in comparison to modern sites, but still it was valuable to explore. I didn’t make it very far into the website because it kept crashing and was honestly quite frustrating to use, so I decided to look at outside sources that reviewed and analyzed the site. Overall, it has very positive reviews, and was very inventive for its time.
I like that you brought up traditional literature being rejected by the younger generations because the idea of that leading to hypertext kind of amuses me. I would say it is a very common thing today for people to play with the tropes of genres and most get praised for their inventive approach. In a way, the idea of taking a linear narrative, essentially the cornerstone of literature, and deciding to throw it out the window is the epidemy of that movement. It makes hypertext a funny concept and a game-changing format.
ReplyDeleteHi Lily, I also looked at Afternoon, a story by Micheal Joyce. I thought it was initially hard to navigate due to the outdated technology, but I thought it was an interesting early example of hypertext fiction. This to me represents what a lot of early works of hypertext look like, and how they navigate on modern computers, it helps define hypertext fiction and place it in a contemporary context.
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