THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Faculty of Arts The Literary Web: A textual transmission model of readership and hypertext Simon Peter Rowberry Doctor of Philosophy March 2014 This Thesis has been completed as a requirement for a postgraduate research degree of the University of Winchester. THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER ABSTRACT FOR THESIS The Literary Web: A textual transmission model of readership and hypertext Simon Peter Rowberry Faculty of Arts Doctor of Philosophy March 2014 Since the turn of the millennium, hypertext (most popularly known as links on the World Wide Web) has become a banal part of our everyday life and has been largely neglected in scholarly discourse. As digital textual media becomes more versatile and re-usable in a variety of contexts, hypertext once more has become an important facet in digital design but this time as part of the reception of text rather than a foundational part of the text’s composition. The current project proposes a framework for understanding the recent transformation of hypertext through the Literary Web hourglass model, which posits that hypertext does not exist as a textual artefact, but rather as a trace of the processes of composition and reception. The Literary Web offers a toolkit for the analysis of literary texts through both a book historical and close reading perspective. This is demonstrated through a reading of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, a foundational work of hypertext fiction. Through reference to some playful examples of contemporary digital literature, termed the hypertext circus, the current project concludes by suggesting ways in which receptional forms of hypertext can be used to create a more open and creative form of hypertext. 1 Table of Contents Declaration and Copyright Statement ................................................................................9 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 15 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 17 Thesis Outline .............................................................................................................. 19 Some Notes on terminology ......................................................................................... 22 Hypertext/proto-hypertext ............................................................................................................. 22 Authorship and reading ................................................................................................................... 23 Digital Literatures ............................................................................................................................. 23 OuLiPo ............................................................................................................................................... 23 Multimedia ......................................................................................................................................... 24 A Note on Sources ........................................................................................................ 24 eBooks ............................................................................................................................................... 24 Twitter and Blogs .............................................................................................................................. 24 Chapter 1: Literature Review ............................................................................................ 25 The Tensions of Interdisciplinarity ............................................................................. 25 Definitions of Hypertext ................................................................................................................ 25 The Two Cultures ............................................................................................................................. 28 Case Study: HyperCard ...................................................................................................................... 29 The Three Hypertexts ...................................................................................................................... 30 The Ideological Fallacy ................................................................................................ 32 Classic Hypertext Ideology ............................................................................................................. 32 Second Generation Hypertext Ideology ....................................................................................... 34 The Storyspace Paradigm ................................................................................................................... 39 Beyond Classic Hypertext ............................................................................................ 42 The Emergence of Digital Humanities ........................................................................................ 42 Book History ..................................................................................................................................... 44 Book history, Bibliography & Hypertext ...................................................................................... 47 pBooks & eBooks ............................................................................................................................. 49 Recent Hypertext Criticism ......................................................................................... 53 Platform Studies................................................................................................................................ 55 Chapter 2: The Convergence of Physical and Digital ...................................................... 60 From a Binary to a Continuum .................................................................................... 62 Interface Through a Glass Darkly ................................................................................................. 69 Liminal Physical-Digital Hybrids ................................................................................ 72 Agrippa ............................................................................................................................................... 73 Venice: The Ruyi .................................................................................................................................. 75 Implementation ...................................................................................................................................... 76 The Xenotext Experiment .............................................................................................................. 78 A Three-Dimensional Taxonomy of Convergence ...................................................... 79 Material ............................................................................................................................................... 82 Structural ............................................................................................................................................ 87 Executable .......................................................................................................................................... 95 Hypertext as Physical-Digital Hybrid........................................................................ 109 Chapter 3: The Literary Web ........................................................................................... 111 Building ...................................................................................................................... 121 Reading through the Literary Web ............................................................................................... 130 Traces ......................................................................................................................... 134 Forking ....................................................................................................................... 141 Chapter 4: The Read-Write Afterlife of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire ......................... 147 Transmission History ................................................................................................. 150 Reading the Literary Web Through Pale Fire ............................................................ 152 3 Reception in Pale Fire ..................................................................................................................... 160 Reprints and Digital Editions .................................................................................... 164 Audio Adaptations ......................................................................................................................... 168 Artists’ Books .................................................................................................................................. 169 A Digital Pale Fire............................................................................................................................ 169 Designing a Read-Write Pale Fire .............................................................................. 178 Chapter 5: The Archive And The Circus ........................................................................ 183 The Archive ...............................................................................................................