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Concept
Electronic literature
Summary
Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. A work of electronic literature can be defined as "a construction whose literary aesthetics emerge from computation", "work that could only exist in the space for which it was developed/written/coded—the digital space". This means that these writings cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the text are unable to be carried over onto a printed version.
N. Katherine Hayles defines electronic literature as "'digital born' (..) and (usually) meant to be read on a computer", clarifying that this does not include e-books and digitised print literature. A definition offered by the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) states electronic literature "refers to works with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer". This can include hypertext fiction, animated poetry (often called kinetic poetry) and other forms of digital poetry, literary chatbots, computer-generated narratives or poetry, art installations with significant literary aspects, interactive fiction and literary uses of social media.
The definition of electronic literature is controversial within the field, with strict definitions being criticised for excluding valuable works, and looser definitions being so murky as to be useless. Scott Rettberg argues that an advantage of a wide definition is its flexibility, which allows it to include new genres as new platforms and modes of literature emerge.
Nonlinear narrativeCybertext and :Category:Precursors of electronic literature
Scholars have discussed a range of pre-digital precursors to electronic literature, from the ancient Chinese book the I Ching, to John Clark's mechanical Latin Verse Machine (1830-1843) to the Dadaist movement's cut-up technique.
Official source
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