Critical Analysis Of Electronic Literature

Critical analysis of electronic literature

This essay comprises of the development and current state of electronic literature and to summarize the fast changing field of electronic literature we need to scrutinize its genres and its genesis which can be traced to the 1989 work by Michael Joyce, afternoon: a story.

Literature can simply be defined as writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography and essays.

If we deem electronic literature in its form it can be described as literary works shaped or created by employing a computer for the electronic medium such that they cannot be experienced in any significant way without the intercession of an electronic device ; as a field, it is building through online journals, like the Iowa Review web.

Electronic literature, otherwise known as Digital Literature,” is a literary genre consisting of works of literature that originate within digital environments and require digital computation to be read”. In disparity to most e-books, electronic literature is created explicitly to be used via a digital setting and thus cannot be printed as key elements of the text require computation: for instance there may be links, generative aspects, multimedia content, and animation or reader communication in addition to the verbal text. Electronic literature may also take the form of digitally mediated performance writing.

N. Katherine Hayles discusses the theme in her online article Electronic Literature: What is it. She is of the opinion that, “electronic literature, generally considered to exclude print literature that has been digitized, is by contrast ‘digital born’,...

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...lar to New York City’s Central Park and encompassed photographs as well as audio narratives. Blast Theory’s Uncle Roy All around You united a game-like quest for Uncle Roy, delivered over PDA’s, with accomplices probing for a postcard secreted at a precise location. In the intervening time, online observers could trail participants and strain to assist or obscure them, thus collaborating virtual reality with concrete movements through urban spaces.

These annotations are not projected as a criticism regarding the ELO’s approach; rather, it is merely a surveillance made by a scholar who has long examined and enjoyed electronic literature and its maturity and organization. The truth is, however, what these works will be called by future generation of readers, scholars and artists and how they will be twisted, viewed, judged and understood is truly anyone’s presumption.