Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
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Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature

Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature

By
Espen J. Aarseth (Author)  

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Can computer games be great literature? Do the rapidly evolving and culturally expanding genres of digital literature mean that the narrative mode of discourse-novels, films, television series-is losing its dominant position in our culture? Is it necessary to define a new aesthetics of cyborg textuality? In Cybertext, Espen Aarseth explores the aesthetics and textual dynamics of digital literature and its diverse genres, including hypertext fiction, computer games, computer-generated poetry and prose, and collaborative Internet texts such as MUDs. Instead of insisting on the uniqueness and newness of electronic writing and interactive fiction, however, Aarseth situates these literary forms within the tradition of "ergodic" literature-a term borrowed from physics to describe open, dynamic texts such as the I Ching or Apollinaire's calligrams, with which the reader must perform specific actions to generate a literary sequence. Constructing a theoretical model that describes how new electronic forms build on this tradition, Aarseth bridges the widely assumed divide between paper texts and electronic texts. He then uses the perspective of ergodic aesthetics to reexamine literary theories of narrative, semiotics, and rhetoric and to explore the implications of applying these theories to materials for which they were not intended. 21 Illustrations, black and white CPSIA choking or other US hazard warning -No California Proposition 65 hazard warning necessary
Espen J. Aarseth is associate professor in the Department of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen, Norway.
  • Contributor: Espen J. Aarseth
  • Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
  • ISBN13: 9780801855795
  • Number of Pages: 216
  • Packaged Dimensions: 140x216x12mm
  • Packaged Weight: 272
  • Format: Paperback
  • Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Release Date: 1997-09-11
  • Binding: Paperback / softback
  • Biography: Espen J. Aarseth is associate professor in the Department of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen, Norway.

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