JYVÄSKYLÄ STUDIES IN HUMANITIES 154 Giovanna Di Rosario Electronic Poetry Understanding Poetry in the Digital Environment JYVÄSKYLÄ STUDIES IN HUMANITIES 154 Giovanna Di Rosario Electronic Poetry Understanding Poetry in the Digital Environment Esitetään Jyväskylän yliopiston humanistisen tiedekunnan suostumuksella julkisesti tarkastettavaksi yliopiston päärakennuksen salissa C4 kesäkuun 3. päivänä 2011 kello 12. Academic dissertation to be publicly discussed, by permission of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Jyväskylä, in university Main building, hall C4, on June 3, 2011 at 12 o'clock noon. UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ JYVÄSKYLÄ 2011 Electronic Poetry Understanding Poetry in the Digital Environment JYVÄSKYLÄ STUDIES IN HUMANITIES 154 Giovanna Di Rosario Electronic Poetry Understanding Poetry in the Digital Environment UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ JYVÄSKYLÄ 2011 Editor Raine Koskimaa Department of Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä Pekka Olsbo, Sini Tuikka Publishing Unit, University Library of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities Editorial Board Editor in Chief Heikki Hanka, Department of Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä Petri Karonen, Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä Paula Kalaja, Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä Petri Toiviainen, Department of Music, University of Jyväskylä Tarja Nikula, Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä Raimo Salokangas, Department of Communication, University of Jyväskylä Cover picture: Simmias of Rhodes, The Egg (325BCE ca.) URN:ISBN:978-951-39-4335-6 ISBN 978-951-39-4335-6 (PDF) ISBN 978-951-39-4324-0 (nid.) ISSN 1459-4331 Copyright © 2011 , by University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä University Printing House, Jyväskylä 2011 ABSTRACT Di Rosario, Giovanna Electronic poetry. Understanding poetry in the digital environment Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2011, 326 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities ISSN 1459-4331; 154) ISBN 978-951-39-4324-0 (nid.), 978-951-39-4335-6 (PDF) Diss. This study has as its main research object the new forms of poetry based on informatics and it is located in the fields of critical theory, hermeneutics, semiotics of the text and digital culture. These new forms emerging from the meeting of poetry and informatics are collectively called Digital Poetry. Digital poetry – also referred to as E-poetry, short for electronic poetry – refers to a wide range of approaches to poetry that all have in common the prominent and crucial use of computers or digital technologies and other devices. Digital poetry does not concern itself with the digitalization of printed works, it relates to digital texts. This work studies only electronic poems created to be read on the computer accessible online. It offers the close-readings of 35 e-poems in 5 different languages (English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish). How does electronic poetry deal with the possibilities uncovered by the new digital medium? A medium that easily allows us to redefine the writing space and the reading time; a medium that allows us to include images and sounds alongside the graphic text, adding also motion and creating new kinds of temporalities; and, finally, that allows the text to be reactive and interactive? The distinction between digital and printed media hides a complex history. A full comprehension of the movement under consideration, as a concept in literature, requires clarification of the historical development from the “movement analogies” in printed literature (innovations in the literary movements and avant-gardes) to the literary innovations (poetic and artistic) in the Internet era. The thesis has been organized around three deeply interconnected approaches: historical, descriptive and analytic. The first approach judges the “novelty” of the phenomenon within a historical context. The descriptive work to be done on the corpus is fundamental in order to establish a sort of typology of e-poetry and, consequently, to be able to start the analytic work. The aim of the study is on the one hand to categorize electronic poems in order to make them more approachable and understandable as objects of study; and on the other it is to provide those who are interested in this new area of study with a sort of critical anthology of electronic poetry. Keywords: digital poetry, poetic language, aesthetics, ICT, web Author’s address Giovanna Di Rosario Department of Art and Culture Studies University of Jyväskylä, Finland Supervisors Raine Koskimaa Department of Art and Culture Studies University of Jyväskylä, Finland Laura Borràs Castanyer Department of Filologia Romànica University of Barcelona, Spain Reviewers Maria Engberg Culture & Communication Group School of Planning and Media Design Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden Alexandra Saemmer Laboratoire Paragraphe University of Paris VIII, France Opponent Alexandra Saemmer Laboratoire Paragraphe University of Paris VIII, France TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER 1: THE WRITTEN IMAGE: AN EXCURSION ON THE CROSS- CONTAMINATION BETWEEN WRITING AND IMAGES ................................ 19 1. Writing Structure ................................................................................................ 19 1.1. Writing and Drawing .............................................................................. 21 1.2. Language and Writing ............................................................................ 22 2. Western Visual Poetry Tradition ..................................................................... 24 2.1. From Simmias of Rhodes to the “Late Latins” .................................... 26 2.2. Hrabanus Maurus .................................................................................... 28 2.3. The Middle Age ....................................................................................... 29 2.4. The Renaissance ....................................................................................... 31 2.4.1. Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ...................... 32 2.4.2. Geoffrey Tory’s Champfleury ....................................................... 33 2.4.3. Connotations of Visual Writing during the Renaissance .......... 34 2.5. The 17th and the 18th Centuries ............................................................. 37 3. The 19th Century ................................................................................................ 40 3.1. Mallarmé and a New “Syntax” of Space ............................................... 41 4. Futurism ............................................................................................................. 42 4.1. The Manifesto of Futurism ...................................................................... 43 4.1.1. Destruction of Syntax and Words-in-Freedom ........................... 45 4.2. Cubo-Futurism .......................................................................................... 46 5. Apollinaire and the Calligrams ........................................................................ 47 6. Dada Movement ................................................................................................. 49 6.1. Dada Poetry ............................................................................................... 50 7. Surrealism ............................................................................................................ 51 7.1. Breton’s Manifesto and Automatic Writing .......................................... 52 8. Lettrism ............................................................................................................. 55 9. Fluxus ............................................................................................................. 57 9.1. Fluxus, the Computer and the Internet ................................................. 59 9.2. Fluxus and Mail Art ................................................................................. 60 10. The Visual and Concrete Poetry ...................................................................... 61 11. Sound Poetry ...................................................................................................... 65 12. (The XXI Century:) Digital Poetry ................................................................... 68 12.1. Theo Lutz’s “Stochastic” Poems ............................................................ 69 12.2. OuLiPo ...................................................................................................... 70 12.1.1. Poetic Techniques ......................................................................... 71 12.3. Computer-based Concrete and Visual Poems .................................... 72 12.3.1 Marc Adrian’s Computer Texts ................................................... 73 12.3.2 Harry Polkinhorn’s Bridges of Skin Money ............................... 74 12.4 Videopoetry .............................................................................................. 75 12.4.1 Calligram in the Computer Era: an Example of Video-calligram ..................................................... 76 CHAPTER 2: E-POETRY: HOW TO APPROACH IT? ........................................... 78 1. The challenge of Semiotics: Semiotics of New Media Literacy ................... 80 1.1. The Semiotics of New Media Literacy ................................................... 81 1.2. Semiotics