Literary and Linguistic Computing Advance Access originally published online on March 27, 2006
Literary and Linguistic Computing 2006 21(Supplement 1):87-98; doi:10.1093/llc/fql010
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‘When thou tookest the book / To view the scriptures, then I turned the leaves/And Led thine eye.’1 Literary Theory and Hypertext—A Faustian Predicament
Learning Technologies Group, University of Oxford, UK 2
Correspondence: Katharine Lindsay, Learning Technologies Group, Oxford University Computing Services, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN UK. E-mail: katharine.lindsay{at}oucs.ox.ac.uk
Advocates of hypertext have proclaimed that it will change the face of the literary world and ultimately the way that we read: the ‘book is dead’ (Douglas, 1994, p. 113). However, these claims are driven more by an euphoria for post-modern theory than by reliable knowledge of human users. This research outlines some of the limitations of hypertext theorizing and, in doing so, promotes experimental evidence over ideology.
This article will convey a resistance to hypertext theorizing by focusing on the issue of studying literature and the hypertextual use of association, or ‘intertextuality’, that has been proffered as the ideal way of reading and interpreting. Although hypertext may have much to offer in terms of aesthetics and pedagogy, this article will argue that the universializing nature of the claims made on its behalf obscure the central issue—how the readers use a hypertext to effectively derive meaning. Firstly, to clarify matters, the events that led to hypertext being considered the Utopian form of textuality will be discussed. Secondly, it will be shown that recent research from a different field of scholarly investigation, namely Cognitive and Computer Science, contends that hypertext is in danger of precluding the experience of reading which depends on structure, guidance and interaction with a stable text. Finally, findings will be put into practice and reasons given for a more constructive model of hypertext that better accounts for what is known about how the readers interact with a literary text.
1 The words of Mephistopheles to Faustus (Marlow, 1986, Doctor Faustus V.ii. pp. 89–91)
2 Research for this article was conducted at the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, UK.