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1. Introduction *

1.1. Starting point: a textual migration *

1.2. An experiential approach *

1.3. Micro- vs. macrostructure *

1.4. Hypertextual vs. narrative syntax *

2. The concept of hypertext *

2.1. What is hypertext? *

2.1.1. Definition(s) *

2.1.2. History *

2.1.3. Some terminology *

2.2. Some aspects of hypertext *

2.2.1. Hypertext and its relatives *

2.2.2. A cognitive model *

2.2.3. Symbol vs. icon *

2.2.4. Informational vs. fictional hypertext *

3. Hyperfiction: formal classification *

3.1. Uni-linear structure *

3.1.1. Plain linear *

3.1.2. Annotative *

3.1.3. Tree-branching *

3.2. Multi-linear structure *

3.2.1. Plain multi-linear *

3.2.2. Braided multi-linear *

3.2.3. Nested funnel *

3.3. Idea space *

3.3.1. Rhizome *

3.3.2. Storyworld *

3.4. Non-linear *

3.4.1. Multiple User Dimension (MUD) *

3.4.2. Random elements *

4. Conclusion: toward a hyperfiction poetics *

5. Bibliography *

The aim of this dissertation is to build a realistic image of the possibilities of hyperfiction and to evaluate its potential contribution to the concept of narrativity. In the introductory remarks, we will clarify the point of departure of this work and its general approach. In the first section of the main body, we will look at some background and typical characteristics of the hypertext medium. We will try to give a definition, sketch a history of hypertext, look briefly at some terminology employed and discuss some important typicalities of the medium. The second section will be dealing with hypertext fiction more specifically. We will attempt to make a formal classification of the different types of hyperfiction, and assess the currently prevailing theory against our findings. To conclude, we will discuss the possibility of a hypertext poetics and what it could look like.

The issue of whether the book will be able to hold off electronic text or not has often been discussed, without reaching an agreement however. Many theorists believe the book’s days of solitary rule in the realm of text are numbered. Tolva claims "Despite exaggerated reports of its demise, the codex book is not dead--but, like handwriting in the age of print, it isn't likely to remain the dominant means of textual dissemination" (Tolva 1995). Others believe that reading off a screen will never become customary. Their arguments vary from the traditional "cannot read it in bathtub" to the fact that screens will never be able to offer the same resolution as the book does. Moreover, a screen is too small to give a clear and neat overview over the matter. These claims cannot be denied! However, we will now look at some arguments to the contrary effect.

First and foremost there are the economic advantages of the electronic form. Even today, when we look at the proportion of the amount of information and how many resources the medium needs to transport it, we must admit that virtual text clearly takes the cake for what concerns the price of the materials, distribution cost, and ease and cost of storage. Second, not unimportant are the ecological advantages of the electronic medium. A priori, no paper is used until the electronic text is printed which should mean less deforestation. Moreover, the transport is overall more environmentally friendly. And finally, there is not supposed to be any direct material waste due to the amount of information transmitted, which is significant when we are moving to an information society.

Third, and probably nearest to the average user, is the practical advantage of virtual text as opposed to material, especially in a network environment. We will just name a few: the ease and speed of replication of originals, the ease and speed of transmittance, the ease of manipulation and interactivity, the multimedia possibilities, the availability and up-to-dateness, the power of full-text information retrieval etc. These advantages are probably the impetus behind the exponential growth of the World Wide Web (WWW). According to Matthew Gray from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the WWW still doubles every three to six months. As for the Internet in general, the number of domains on Wednesday March 18, 1999 was 5,222,894.

The least we can deduce from these statistics and advantages is that they are impressive. The chance that the Internet and electronic text will play a major part in the information society of tomorrow is extremely great. Therefore, in this paper, we will avoid the hypothetical distinction between ‘if the book remains’ and ‘if the virtual text takes over’ by postulating a textual migration towards the virtual. In other words, electronic text, as opposed to printed text, will be assumed to become "the dominant means of textual dissemination" (Tolva 1995). The claim is not that we are evolving towards a paperless society. Rather, we choose for electronic texts as a working hypothesis, which--as we will see in the next section--enables us to avoid much of the hypertext 'claptrap.'

Heretofore, mainly two attitudes towards hypertext and especially towards hypertext fiction have been prevailing. On one side, we find hardcopy elegists like Sven Birkerts, who made it their life’s work to defend the book and resist to any change. Equally on this side, we find journalists like Laura Miller, who despise anything that deviates from the classical author, ''a solitary voice whispering in your ear" (Miller 1998), and who denounce what they call "the alienation of academic literary criticism from actual readers and their desires" (ibid.). Their slogan is ‘nobody reads hypertext fiction and nobody wants to!’

On the other side, we find the hypertext enthusiasts, who, especially in the early days, made ludicrous claims about hypertext going to change the whole of society with everything in it. They believed that hypertext would finally enable us to think freely, unbound from linearity. Some even saw and still see it as a counterweight to capitalist thought. Now that the early hype is over, we see that these early claims were nothing more than a cry for attention. Hypertext now has a reasonably stable basis to develop from, i.e. the WWW. The attention is there! Thus, neither as a synthesis of nor a compromise between the two views described earlier, I propose a third, which we may call an experiential approach.

As we have seen in the first section, there are reasons to believe that hypertext or some other similar device will take over or at least diminish the current dominance of paper in the domain of textuality. Therefore, as a point of departure, we have chosen to postulate a textual migration towards the virtual. This postulation has two major consequences with which we will deal now: (1) there is no longer a necessity for disproportionate claims, and (2) the theoretical angle changes from existing post-structural theory to an inductive or experiential approach.

(1) When we choose to take for granted that we will soon be working with virtual, rather than paper text, the focal point of the discussion can move from 'is electronic text desirable or not?' to 'what can we offer in electronic text, which we could not on paper?' or 'how can we carry the new hypertextual tools to their highest performance, especially for hyperfiction?'. Or in Tolva's words: "[T]he question [becomes] not if computers will transform our notion of reading and writing, but instead how?" (Tolva 1995). This allows us to avoid much of the traditional hypertext blah. We no longer have to deal with the bathtub argument. Neither do we have to prove that hypertext will change our whole way of thinking. Instead, we will try to analyse the current hypertextual devices and see how they could enhance narrative.

Moreover, we no longer have to consider hypertext as being an enemy of the book, because it is not. It is a successor or a child, of what we thus far considered the only or at least the best information carrier possible. As Bolter correctly observes: "One irony, then, is that the defenders of the printed book have not really identified their enemy. The computer as hypertext extends the possibilities of verbal rhetoric. It is computer graphics that challenge the representational basis of both printed novels and hypertexts. Virtual reality, not hypertext, is the antithesis of the printed novel" (Bolter 1996). As a result of this observation, the pressure within the kettle can eventually diminish. This should permit the discussion to become less biased and more scientific and serene. Very often the experiential approach will boil down to concretising, relativising and challenging, but not a priori discarding early claims about hypertext.

(2) Until now, a great deal of literary theory about hypertext and hyperfiction has been written starting from poststructuralist theory like that of Derrida, J. Hillis Miller, Barthes, Deleuze etc. For lack of a concrete tradition of hypertexts and hyperfictions, hypertext theorists like Landow and Moulthrop decided to put the emphasis on the similarities between hypertext and the type of text poststructuralists have been advocating. The fact that their arguments were based on their experience with paper texts did not seem to bother. And indeed, there are many similarities between the two. Many notions have been successfully transferred from one field to the other. The question is, however, if one should maintain this parallel. Is it not high time to cut the navel-string?

Again, I would like to refer back to our point of departure. When we postulate a textual migration, this implies that the aim of our theory is to be concretely applicable on the one hand, and based on experience on the other. This does not mean that all traditional hypertext theory needs debunking. What we will rather try to do is form a counterweight, a challenge to existing theory. In the first part we will therefore take a closer look at some hypertextual devices and their characteristics. In the second, these will be linked to what has up to now been established with them (on the WWW), when it comes to narrativity. This we will do by making a formal classification of the different types of hyperfiction.

Now, we will look at a comparison made by McGann in his "Rationale of Hypertext." He reminds us that the Internet is an archive of archives that "was originally designed precisely as a decentred, nonhierarchical structure." It was meant as a network that could resist partial destruction or non-availability, that could be "cut at any point, at any number of points, and still remain intact as a structured informational network (…). That kind of organisation ensures that relationships and connections can be established and developed in arbitrary and stochastic patterns" (McGann 1995). Next, he moves to the resemblance of this type of structure with that of the library as we know it. It is designed to allow indefinite expansion, it "can be accommodated to any kind of physical environment, and is neutral with respect to user demands and navigation. Moreover, the library is logically "complete" no matter how many volumes it contains."

Then McGann continues by describing even more affinities between both organisational patterns and the similar experiences of its users. In the end, however, he states somewhat hesitantly "each unit of the organization (each document and also each set of documents), like each node on the Internet, is logically defined as an independent item" (McGann 1995). Logically defined yes, but is it true that each node is independent in the same way a book in a library is? Does it relate to any other node or page of the macrostructure in the same way as it does to that of the microstructure, which it was specifically designed for? I believe that this is too optimistic.

The Internet has, indeed, a very decentred and anti-hierarchical structure, but not a non-hierarchical one. Therefore, we should distinguish between the microstructure (the book) and the macrostructure of the whole WWW (the library), as for both different rules apply. In other words, experience has proved that most Internet sites are hierarchical. It is not so that every page is equally related to every other. Rather, there are sub-webs according to the topic discussed, the country of origin, etc. In this dissertation we will be focussing on microstructure and occasionally we will refer to macrostructure.

As a final introductory remark, I would like to make a difference between two levels of abstraction, which we will need more than once throughout this paper, i.e. the level of (1) hypertextual syntax and the level of (2) narrative syntax.

(1) The level of hypertextual syntax is the one that is most difficult to define or even describe starting from other media. When we look at a paper text, we find all kinds of different tools, which divide the text into bits and pieces. There are, e.g., spaces between words, punctuation, the difference between capital and lower case letters, different fonts, paragraphs, chapters, books etc. What all these seem to do is distinguish and create a hierarchy between the different linguistic units situated on 'one long line of text'. They allow us to see not just the text but also within it, thus defining the status of each unit and giving it its place and character within the whole.

These devices are closely related to what we will describe on the hypertextual level. The only difference is that the 'line of text' is to be replaced by a large clipboard on which all the pages or nodes of the hypertext are to be attached. Then, it is up to the links to establish the connections between the different bits of text. The hypertextual syntactic level thus exceeds linearity and allows the text to become a space rather than a line. Within this space, many more different relations between units become possible. It is these relations that constitute the hypertext syntax and it is these that we will attempt to describe in our formal classification in the second part.

(2) The second level or the level of narrative syntax, on the other hand, is much less medium-specific. It primarily contains units of narrative, rather than material units. In other words, you have a kind of meta-structuring, which does not necessarily manifest itself on the first level. As an illustration, we could oppose direct speech as a second level phenomenon (a character speaks) clearly manifested on the first level (quotation marks). Indirect speech, however is the same phenomenon, but already much less articulated on the first level (word choice, sentence structure). Phenomena like pointing forward (prolepsis), however, are purely or at least for the most part ‘meta’ since they do not have a direct relation with any construction of the first level.

The transition we are experiencing now, i.e. one from paper to virtual text is primarily one to be situated on the first level. Linearity is replaced by geography. It is the medium that changes. In this way, even for hyperfiction, the shift should be seen primarily as an extension of the existing linguistic set of tools, rather than a new literary genre. It is therefore more comparable to the transition from manuscript to book culture than to that of romance to novel for example. However, this does not mean that, secondarily, the medial change will not have its consequences for the narrative level as well. In fact, many elements that were traditionally only realised on the narrative syntactic level (e.g. point of view, focalisation) can now be realised within the geographical space of hypertext (cf. infra). This may, in turn, influence what is represented on the narrative level and allow hyperfiction to evolve away from existing literary forms.

Moreover, the shift is not radical or binary, i.e., one from no to yes, but one of degree of ease. Hypertext and hyperfiction were also possible in book format, but they had nothing near the power of an electronic hypertext. Or as Landow has it: "Hypertext linking simply allows one to speed up the usual process of making connections while providing a means of graphing such transactions" (Landow 1997: 81). However, "Changing the ease with which one can orient oneself and pursue individual references within such a context radically changes both the experience of reading and ultimately the nature of what is read" (ibid.: 4). Thus, it is probable that a new genre will emerge from the new medium, but this is not the real transition at issue, it is only a concomitant phenomenon.

Probably the best known example of a hypertext in book format is the traditional codex book. Within the text you find references to other, separate pieces of text i.e. notes, which then, in turn, can refer to another text or another part of the first text or just give some additional information. These references are obviously paper counterparts of what we nowadays in electronic hypertexts call a link. Indeed, at first sight, the only significant difference between both is the fact that, when working electronically, you do not have to browse through the book manually, since the computer does it for you. Although there are some subtler differences, which will be dealt with later on, we can say that the codex is an informational hypertext avant la lettre.

However, theorists have also found fictional pre-electronic hypertexts, some that go back several centuries. We will restrict ourselves to just mentioning a few instances, since it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to deal with them more amply. Most commonly mentioned, we find "Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Tennyson’s In Memoriam, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake and recent French, American, and Latin American fiction, particularly that by Michel Butor, Marc Saporta, Robert Coover, and Jorge Luis Borges" (Bolter, quoted in Landow 1997: 182). Finally, Keep also makes a parallel with the book of books, i.e. the bible. Although sometimes far-fetched, he does come up with several good arguments, as there are: the different interpretations of the text which together constitute its meaning, the multivocality within the synoptic gospels and the habit of just opening the book at random and start reading. Thus, the mother of all books could also be seen as an ancestor of hypertext.

2.1.1. Definition(s)

What the term 'hypertext' exactly designates, remains a problematic issue. Theodor H. Nelson coined the word in 1965. It is a conjunction of ‘text’ and the Old Greek 'uper' (hyper) meaning 'over, above, beyond, besides'. "By ‘hypertext,’" Nelson explains, "I mean non-sequential writing--text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen." (Nelson, quoted in Landow 1997: 3). Note that Nelson meant hypertext to be read off a screen. The examples of non-electronic hypertext were attested only later, when critics started seeing the resemblance between Nelson’s ideas and similar developments in earlier experimental novel writing.

Another term invented by Nelson is ‘hypermedia’, which implies linking and navigation through material stored in many media: text, graphics, sound, music, video, etc. However, the existing hypertext systems prove that this term is generally superfluous. On the World Wide Web for example, we see that graphics and other media are handled in almost exactly the same way as text chunks. Therefore, it may be more interesting to allow ‘text,’ as in ‘hypertext,’ to contain both symbolic and iconic signs (cf. 2.2.3.) and also streaming media.

A very comprehensive and useful definition in this respect is the one we find in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Hypertext is "text which does not form a single sequence and which may be read in various orders; especially text and graphics (...) which are interconnected in such a way that a reader of the material (as displayed at a computer terminal, etc.) can discontinue reading one document at certain points in order to consult other related matter" (OED). We will use the OED definition as the starting point of this discussion. To be able to include non-electronic hypertexts within the scope of the term 'hypertext', we will employ 'explicit reference' as the criterion to distinguish hypertext from text with hypertextual qualities (only implicit reference).

Hypertext is a very broad phenomenon and it has been interpreted in many different ways. Within the realm of hypertext research, at least three types of definitions can be distinguished, viz. one coming from (1) literary theorists, one from (2) computer scientists and one from (3) cognitive scientists. Each type goes with its own methodology, theories and descriptions. Although there are more definitions present in the field than those we will look at, most of them can be classed under one of the three types mentioned.

(1) Nelson saw hypertext as a literary device. "Hypertext, or non-sequential writing with free user movement along links, is a simple and obvious idea. It is merely the electronification of literary connections as we already know them" (Nelson, quoted in De Bra 1998). Many literary critics agree with Nelson. They see hypertext as an opportunity to transcend the restrictions of the traditional written text, although they still see it as a derivative of the latter. "A hypertext is like a printed book that the author has himself attacked with a pair of scissors and cut into convenient verbal sizes. The difference is that the electronic hypertext does not simply dissolve into a disordered bundle of slips; the author defines its structure by establishing electronic connections among the slips" (Bolter, ibid.).

(2) Literary theorists like Landow would like to see hypertext as a convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Many computer scientists, however, approach hypertext as an information-delivering medium, placing the emphasis on its capacity to store and retrieve large amounts of information. "Mechanisms are being devised which allow direct machine-supported references from one textual chunk to another; new interfaces provide the user with the ability to interact directly with these chunks and to establish new relationships between them" (Conklin, ibid.). They see hypertext as a database, rather than a text. Hypertext is defined as "a database that has active cross-references and allows the reader to "jump" to other parts of the database as desired" (Schneiderman, quoted in De Bra).

The wide gap seemingly yawning between both these approaches should not be such a problem however. When talking about hypertext, computer scientists focus on the system, whereas literary theorists will refer to the composition of a hypertext when the system is already there. In other words, when considering the WWW and its HyperText Markup Language (html), computer scientists will be interested in improving the quality of the authoring tools and html itself. Of course they do care for the possibilities of creating a good hypertext, but they do this from a different perspective. For them, what is at issue is whether the connections made by the reader or author are clear and meaningful or at least that they can be so. The software is therefore generally made to produce informative rather than fictional hypertexts.

Literary theorists, on the other hand, will try to enhance the literary use of the tools offered. Thus they are not always concerned with the clarity and meaningfulness of the connection. Sometimes a good fictional hypertext deliberately employs an opaque connection to produce the right effect: to surprise the reader for example. Literary theorists are therefore not primarily concerned with hypertext software, just like they have not been with the mechanics of a typewriter. An exception on the rule has been the creation of Storyspace, a software platform specifically designed for writing hyperfiction, for which literary theorists and programmers worked together. However, lot of confusion could be avoided by using terminology more adequately and by distinguishing between hypertext systems and hypertexts themselves (cf. 2.1.3.).

(3) The third approach of hypertext research is more directly opposed to the literary viewpoint. Cognitive scientists, like computer scientists, see hypertext as a new means for structuring large databases. However, they focus on the resemblance shown by this type of structuring with the way the mind structures and accesses newly acquired knowledge. Thus, the emphasis is not so much on the storage itself, but on the associative linking between the different units. Just consider the following description: "it is appropriate to view hypertext as a method of supporting the expression of relationships among objects in a database. Hypertext should be treated as a general-purpose tool with approaches to handling nodes, links, and retrieval, that fits within the context of any application and convey common meanings to the users" (Rao, ibid.). What cognitive scientists try to do is "convey common meanings to the user." Literary theorists, on the other hand, will emphasise the aspect of interpretation. The difference between both approaches will be dealt with more extensively in 2.2.4.

Jorn Barger’s hypertext timeline (Barger 1998) goes back about 5000 years and it is divided into 11 periods, most of them situated in the last fifty years. We will use his work as a backbone for our overview of hypertext's history, and highlight the most important events. The first period starts at approximately 3000 BC with the first clay tablets and papyrus scrolls being produced. This very early beginning suggests that Barger believes that in every text there is to some degree hypertextuality, a competition between our multilinear thought and linear way of writing, together with implicit reference to other works.

Barger situates the first known hypertext in Persia in 900 BC with the 1001 Arabian Nights. Here, we should clearly distinguish between hypertextual texts or fictions and hypertexts. In the previous section we have seen that 'explicit reference' can be used as a criterion. Thus, strictly speaking, the 1001 Arabian Nights is not a hypertext. It is only in 1759 when Sterne writes Tristram Shandy, the first novel regularly containing explicit references to other pages, that we find the what is probably first fictional (non-electronic) hypertext.

In 1945 two important events occur; Eckert and Mauchly complete the first successful electronic digital computer: the ENIAC, and Vannevar Bush introduces his MEMEX (memory extender) project. In the Essay "As We May Think," Bush tries to find a solution to the growing problem of the inaccessibility of our archives.

Bush’s interest is clearly encyclopaedic; he wants to devise a new means to facilitate access to the record. Although he states "The advanced arithmetical machines of the future will be electrical in nature, and they will perform at 100 times present speeds, or more" (ibid.), he still sees his memex as a mechanical device based on microfilm and levers. "On deflecting one of these levers to the right [the user] runs through the book before him, each page in turn being projected at a speed which just allows a recognizing glance at each. If he deflects it further to the right, he steps through the book 10 pages at a time; still further at 100 pages at a time" (ibid.).

More important than the technological details, however, is the fact that Bush proposes associative indexing as a new means to retrieve information.

Thus, Bush introduces three entirely new elements directly connected with associative indexing: links, trails and sets of these trails called webs. This provides us with a new "concept of multiple textuality, since within the memex text refers to (1) individual reading units that constitute a traditional "work," (2) those entire works, (3) sets of documents created by trails, and possibly (4) those trails themselves without accompanying documents" (Landow 1997: 10). Bush should therefore be seen as the inventor of the concept of hypertext.

In 1965 Nelson wrote his first paper for the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), it was in the same period that he coined the term hypertext. Although Nelson repeatedly refers to Bush--he even includes "As We May Think" as a chapter in his Literary Machines (1981)--they both have different conceptions of hypertext. Whereas Bush sees it as a way to manipulate and search large amounts of stored knowledge, Nelson dreams of the ultimate centralised literary archive, which he named Xanadu after the imaginary utopia in Coleridge’s "Kubla Khan."

It seems now, that his vision will remain just that, a dream of a universal library at our fingertips. Although many people argue that the Internet is attaining most of Nelson’s objectives, others zealously advocate that we still have a long way to go.

With the introduction of the ARPANET, the ancestor of the Internet in 1969, the network era commences. The first distributed hypertext appears in 1972 with ZOG at Carnegie Mellon. In 1976 Don Woods adds fantastic elements to Crowther’s cave adventure, thus creating the first interactive fiction. "Adventure in turn launched a genre. Its offspring, called "text adventures," became a mainstay of the early computer game (…), earning literary notice and praise" (Moulthrop 1995).

The micro or personal computer era starts in 1977 with the launch of the Apple personal computer. In 1978 MIT creates the first hypermedia videodisc, the Aspen Movie Map. The user can pay a virtual visit to the town of Aspen. In 1979 Truscott and Bellovin introduce Usenet news, and Bartle creates the first Multiple User Dimension (MUD). In 1980 the first text adventure, Zork, appears on the Apple computer. Infocom will produce many more after that. In 1983 the TCP/IP standard replaces NCP as the main protocol for what is to become the Internet.

In 1987 Hypercard, the first program that allowed hypertextual organisation on a simple personal computer is added to the Apple Macintosh package. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee makes the first proposals for a World-Wide Web. In the same year, Michael Joyce writes Afternoon the first ‘serious hyperfiction,’ published by Eastgate. In 1990, the first version of 'hypertext markup language' (html) is released. In 1992 the World Wide Web is released by CERN. In only two years the WWW byte-traffic will pass that of Gopher, an older equivalent of WWW, but not hypertextual.

In 1993 the first easy-to-use web browser, NCSA Mosaic 1.0 for X Windows is released. In 1994 Clark and Andreessen form Mosaic, later that year they will release the first beta-version of Netscape. In 1995 search engines like Lycos and Yahoo are started up, Altavista lists no less than 15 million pages and Java makes applets net portable. In 1997 hypertext fiction meets with its first successes.

When we look at this history of hypertext and hyperfiction, there are two important remarks to be made.

(1) "[T]he movement from manuscript to print and then to hypertext appears one of increasing fragmentation." Whereas manuscripts were not subdivided in pages or sometimes not even in words, book culture introduced structuring (and fragmenting) devices like paragraphing, page numbering and the division of the text in chapters or even books. While going from book culture to hypertext we experience a similar phenomenon. The text is generally divided into even smaller parts and these parts achieve a certain degree of independence. This holds the danger of losing all structure. However, "the fragmentation of the hypertext document does not imply the kind of entropy that such fragmentation would have in the world of print. Capacities such as full-text searching, automatic linking, agents, and conceptual filtering potentially have the power to retain the benefits of hypertextuality while insulating the reader from the ill effects of abandoning linearity" (Landow 1997: 77).

(2) The development of electronic novels likewise seems to be the outcome of a natural process. Harris observes that "these technographic books seem the nearly inevitable extrapolation of the metafictional trajectory we can trace in the novel throughout the second half of the 20th century" (Harris 1997). He also notes that the new medium causes a new point of view on the matter of literature to come into existence. "Technographic books emerge as the history of writing itself comes to be rewritten with a new urgency, within the annals of literary theory, in the novel, and in historical accounts of print and computer textuality alike" (ibid.). Harris concludes that the novel could only follow the same course. "And so as the novel became conscious of itself as not only a medium, but as a sort of ontological play where textual worlds came into existence, it began to reflect on its own history from a viewpoint that took a retrospective turn" (ibid.).

In this section we will take a more technological viewpoint. In order to understand the implications of the change to hypertext writing better, we have to be acquainted with the different terms popping up in the discussion. The terms we will be dealing with are grouped around three main notions: (1) hypertext (system), (2) the link and (3) the network. Finally, we will briefly look at some additional notions dealing with (4) nodes and node grouping.

To begin with, let us repeat the obvious to avoid confusion later on. Following De Bra, when we speak of a hyperdocument, we will be referring to "the information content, including the information items (nodes) and the connections between them (links), regardless of the system used to read (or write) the document" (De Bra 1998). A hypertext system is "a piece of software which lets you read (and maybe also write) hyperdocuments. It does not necessarily contain a hyperdocument" (ibid.). A hypertext, finally, is "a hypertext system containing a hyperdocument" (ibid.). We will not follow Keep’s terminology of hyperbook however. The term ‘book’ refers too much to the material object to use it for hypertext. When referring to Sterne’s work e.g., we will employ the term pre- or non-electronic hypertext.

The basis of this new textuality called hypertext is of course the link. A link is a connection between two or more text units that allows the reader to traverse from one to the other. Landow sees the link as "an element that simultaneously blurs borders and bridges gaps, yet draws attention to them" (Landow 1997: 20). In order to understand the new medium better, some knowledge of this new grammatical tool is required. We will now take a look at the different kinds of links, their properties, advantages and disadvantages, which will result in a complex cross-classification.

Keep distinguishes between four link classes. (i) The first and most common one is the reference link. "When a reference link is selected, the destination node is presented on the screen, usually replacing the image of the current node" (Keep 1995). Most hypertexts on the WWW consist entirely of links of this type. Important is that "they allow the creation of non-hierarchical structures" (ibid.). When we will be looking at link types, we will see that within this link class, further subdivisions can be made.

(ii) A note link, a link class supported by software like MSWord, but not by the WWW, is the electronic equivalent of the footnote or endnote. "When a note link is selected, a small area of the screen (a "pop-up" window) displays the destination node (…) No links may be followed from the pop-up; the reader must return to the original node before navigating further" (ibid.).

(iii) A third class of links is that of the expansion link also called replacement (De Bra 1998) or stretchtext (Nelson, see Keep 1995), is not (yet) generally supported by html either. "When an expansion link is selected, the contents of the destination node are expanded in-line at the source anchor" (ibid.). In other words, when you are reading a text and you click on an expansion link, the text will break open and the node connected to the link will place itself where the word (or sign) you clicked on (anchor) used to be. This type of linking only allows a hierarchical structure since the first text inevitably assumes a superior position towards the second, the one that is inserted.

(iv) A final link class is that of the command link or action link, which is supported by the WWW. However, it has no independent status: it takes the form of a reference link. "When a command link is selected, an action is performed: the operating system is called, an external program is run, etc. In some systems, this is implemented by having the destination node contain a program script which is executed on linking" (ibid.).

Within these four link classes, several link types can be distinguished. First of all, Landow distinguishes between the unidirectional and the bidirectional link. Many hypertext systems do or did allow them both, but as we are dealing with the WWW, the distinction is meaningless. On the WWW, every link is uni- and bidirectional at the same time. Basically, the link is always unidirectional, but as most browsers have a history or a back function, these links become bidirectional. Since there are two categories of text units, to which can be linked, i.e. lexias (nodes, cf. infra) and text strings, we get four possible connections.

(i) The first is that from lexia--page if you will--to lexia. This is the most basic form of linking, and in early systems it used to be the only one. This link type is useful for continuation of a text e.g.; it is easy for the reader to orient herself.

(ii) When you want to refer more specifically to a certain passage, however, string--that is, a word or a phrase--to string linking is more appropriate. "By bringing readers to a clearly defined point in a text, one enables them to perceive immediately the reason for a link and hence to grasp the relation between two lexias or portions of them" (Landow 1997: 11). It thus allows for what Landow calls a ‘rhetoric of arrival.’ However, "The possible disadvantage of such a mode to authors--which is a major advantage from the readers point of view--is that it requires more planning or, at least more definite reasons for each link" (ibid.).

(iii) Linking a lexia to a string is not very common on the WWW although it is possible. The advantages and disadvantages are somewhat similar to those of string to string linking, except for the fact that you need a source anchor outside the text, which could be a disadvantage.

(iv) For string to lexia linking, the most common form of linking on the WWW, Landow discerns three advantages. "First, it permits simple means of orienting readers by permitting a basic rhetoric of departure" (ibid.). By rhetoric of departure, he means that the reader can be given a clear signal of where the link will lead to. By highlighting more or less text and by word choice a clear meaning can be communicated. Second, "since one can choose to leave the lexia at different points, one can comfortably read through longer texts" (ibid.). This holds, of course, for string to string linking as well.

"Third, this linking mode also encourages different kinds of annotation and linking, since the ability to attach links to different phrases, portions of images and the like allows the author to indicate different kinds of link destinations" (ibid.). This follows directly from the first remark. When employing string to lexia linking, one can e.g. link to the words 'picture of…' which is impossible when starting from a whole lexia. The greatest difficulty with string to lexia linking occurs for the reader when arriving at too large a page. Readers will often find themselves disoriented in such a position.

Another important differentiation is that of one to one linking--what we generally subsume under the term link--vs. many to one linking. "A method called many-to-one linking proves particularly handy for creating a glossary function or for creating documents that make multiple references to a single text, table, image, or other data (…) has advantages in educational or informational applications" (Landow 1997: 11). What you do is use the same information more than once so that you do not have to repeat. Very often these links are soft (or reader-created, cf. infra).

For Landow, full hypertextuality depends on the presence of the possibility of one to many linking, which lets the reader obtain more than one kind of information from one text string. Landow argues that one to many linking supports hypertextuality in many ways. "First, it encourages branching and consequently multiplies the reader’s choices" (ibid.). This is not always an advantage however; too many choices can cause cognitive overhead. "Second, attaching multiple links to a single text allows hypertext authors to create overviews and directories that serve as efficient crossroad documents, or orientation points, that help the reader navigate hyperspace. Multiple views or sets of overviews have the additional advantage of easily permitting different authors to provide multiple ways through the same information space" (ibid.).

Undoubtedly, one to many linking would be a valuable addition to current hypertext systems, but whether full hypertextuality depends on it is questionable. First of all, recent versions of html do allow some sort of one to many linking in the form of pop-up menus. Admittedly, they are not very appropriate to use in a text, they are rather meant for schemes or overviews. Moreover, if one really needed one to many linking so desperately, one could always take recourse to making an intermediary lexia. The first link from the basic anchor is a string to lexia link to another page, which then presents the reader with the required choices. Again, we must admit that this is no ideal solution, as the WWW is very often slow and therefore intermediary pages are not desirable.

One more distinction that has to be kept in mind while dealing with hypertext is that between hard and soft links. As we have already mentioned, hard links are links created by the author and that can be chosen by the reader to follow. Soft links, then, are links that are not prepared by the author, but that are evoked by the reader’s wish itself. "For example, the user can click on a word and the system can search for the occurrence of the same word or a synonymous word in other documents/nodes and traverse to that node. These can be considered non-authored link markers/links" (Balasubramanian 1995).

Concretely, when you let your browser search for a certain word or phrase on a page, you are creating a link yourself. Whether this link should be considered hypertextual is still being discussed (cf. 2.2.1.). One peculiar type of soft or (more or less) reader-created link is that generated automatically between nodes that are similar. "A test by Bernstein showed that an automated generator of hypertext links can easily achieve a 95% accuracy in generating meaningful links" (De Bra 1998). De Bra notes two difficulties with this kind of link. One is that the computer encounters problems creating meaningful anchors for the links. Another is that this procedure might lead to an undesired wealth of links, which, in turn, produces cognitive overhead.

Finally, there are two types of command links; or rather two subdivisions of one certain type of command link that need mentioning. Data-exchange links engage a certain procedure that transports information from a source to a destination device or programme. These data can then be translated into a destination file or consumed as a data stream of sound, film… Warm links are reader-activated or soft data exchange links. When you choose to download a certain file from an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server for example, you click to start the procedure and the information is transmitted to you. In the case of "cookies" on the net, for example, it is not the user that desires to see publicity, but it is the author or provider that, so to speak, throws or pushes it onto the user’s screen. This type of data-exchange link is called a hot link.

Landow recognises at least four different meanings of the term network in current day discussions about hypertext. First, there is the possibility of transferring individual print books for example to hypertext. Thus, we get a web of nodes and links and paths, but one of the kind that we have called macrostructure in the introduction, the electronic equivalent of the real world library.

Second, there is a similar possible structure, but on a micro-plan. In other words, whilst creating a hypertext directly--i.e., not converting it from a linear text--we will get smaller lexias or nodes that will have closer relations with one another. Thus we get a new, but smaller type of network, which we will call micro-structural.

Third, there is the obvious meaning of "an electronic system involving additional computers as well as cables or wire connections that permit individual machines, workstations, and reading-and-writing-sites to share information" (Landow 1997: 42). When referring to this kind of network we will usually employ the term Internet or specify by referring to a LAN (local area network). McGann observes that hypertexts "can be distributed in self-contained forms (e.g., on CD-ROM disks) or they can be structured for transmission through the Network. In this last case, the basic hypertext structure is raised to a higher power (but not to a higher level): a networked structure (say, World-Wide Web) of local hypertexts opens out into a network of networks" (McGann 1995).

The fourth meaning, Landow recognises as being closest to matching the use in critical (literary) theory.

In other words, what Landow means by this is the covert network of interrelations that exists within the world of knowledge and literature; the relationships between our thoughts and those of others in history and, more importantly, the connections between the illustrious and their environment. Landow sees it as the task of literary theorists to discover these ties and that of hypertext to make them explicit.

Many terms have been used to designate the main textual unit or node in different hypertext systems. Keep notes a few synonyms: "frame (KMS), work space (StorySpace), card (HyperCard), and lexia (Barthes by way of Landow). On the World Wide Web, a node is simply termed a Web Page" (Keep 1995). From this group two seem to be emerging, viz. lexia and node which we will employ. When referring to the WWW, we will sometimes use the term page.

"A cluster is a subset of the complete network, a group of nodes and links which share a common concept and may be seen as an aggregate" (ibid.). Sometimes it will consist of an entire microstructure; sometimes it may be sub-micro-structural.

"A path is a sequence of nodes and links taken while navigating the network (ibid.)" In a web browser, you can retrace your path by using the history function. In some systems you can save your path and pass it on to somebody else. This is important for hypertext fictions, because then you can share your reading experience.

Finally, a filter is a device that restricts the entire network to a specified subset of nodes and links. "Filters permit the reader to limit the scope of navigation to a given area of interest. This is especially important as nodes increase in number and their contents become more heterogeneous" (ibid.).

2.2.1. Hypertext and its relatives

In this section we will try to determine some aspects of the nature of the hypertext medium by comparing it to related notions. We will successively deal with (1) hypertext as text, (2) hypertext as e-text, and (3) hypertext as a metaphor.

Many people argue that hypertext has always existed, that there is nothing new under the sun. "There never has been hypertext (Ted Nelson made it up: as Guyer has written elsewhere "It has to do with, god help us, the non-existence of abstracted dualities. By this I mean all the usual, traditional [polar] representations. The list goes on as long as consciousness itself. We make these things up!") All text is hypertext, always has been, surely is in an electronic universe" (Joyce in Feed 1995). Hypertext is considered to be the struggle of multilinear thought trying to break out of its symbolic representation. Very often, in the same respect, the implicit reference of literary works to other literary works is mentioned. Every text is, so to speak, a result of the oscillation between exterior influences and multilinear interior thought, which is then converted into linear writing. Electronic hypertext merely allows explicating the exterior influences as links, and permits to make the linear text become multilinear and therefore closer to human thought.

This idea has its merits, especially in the context of postmodern literary criticism. However, the terminological question remains whether we should call every text a hypertext. Undoubtedly, there are in every text traces of the struggle described earlier, but this is implicit. It is inherent to every text to refer to other texts by quoting or even just by using the same words, but is this hypertext? Is this not rather a quality of the concept of text that critics have overlooked for so long or, at least, not interpreted in the way they do now? I believe it is better to reserve the term hypertext for explicit reference or links as (for fiction) they start to occur in the eighteenth century with Sterne's Tristram Shandy. In this way, we can distinguish hypertext without referring to the medium it is presented by, be it paper or computer screen.

Joyce, however, seems to go a lot further than this. He claims that hypertext is somehow a kind of hyper(o)nym of text, a related yet superordinated term. He sees linearity as just one manifestation of the multilinear. "Electronic texts merely provide the occasion for the multiple consciousness which linearity has always played within and against. Graph theorists say the hierarchy is merely a special case of the network. The linear is merely a special case of the multiple" (Joyce in Feed 1995). But is this not like saying that the number 1 (one) is simply a special case of the number 2 or three? Does a network itself not consist in many linear connections? Why would we want to make the multiple into a more basic feature than the linear? There are no immediate answers to these questions, since both notions cannot be opposed. They belong to different levels of abstraction, and they are complexly intertwined; nonetheless they are both recognisable. I therefore believe that the perspective of text and thought as a struggle between the notions of linearity and multilinearity is the more fruitful one.

Multilinearity is not always recognised in text because of the linear 'outfit' of the latter. Moreover, we are so much used to book culture that we no longer recognise that it is a 'technology' like every other, and that it is no more natural than the printing press by which it was produced. Thus, the fact that many text units are in fact juxtaposed or networked to a certain degree seems sometimes an awkward idea to a naïve reader. When we take a closer look at the outline of the book, however, and especially at its evolution over the centuries, we must admit that more and more 'juxtaposing devices' were introduced. In primary school, children are taught that they should begin a new paragraph whenever a new thought occurs. In other words, paragraphing is a kind of textual tool that signals a certain parataxis or juxtaposition. The same goes for chapters and, indeed books, for when an ultimately different thought is engaged in, the author starts a new book.

Finally, as we have seen earlier in the brief discussion of Bush's "As We May Think," in a hypertextual environment, text acquires a number of additional meanings. Relations between text, be they implicit or explicit, can now be made explicit by the link. This network of intertextual relations forms itself a second text 'behind' the text as we used to know it, one that is not immediately visible to the reader; it is to be thought of as virtual. "More than any other crucial term to this discussion, text has ceased to inhabit a single world. Existing in two different worlds, it gathers contradictory meanings to itself, and one must find some way of avoiding confusion when using it." However, critics have not yet reached a verdict on this question. Landow notes "For example, in discussing that hypertext systems permit one to link a passage "in" the "text" to other passages "in" the "text" as well as to those "outside" it, one confronts precisely such anachronism" (Landow 1997: 58). For convenience' sake we will persist in employing the term 'text' in such an anachronistic fashion to refer to text as a microstructure (cf. introduction).

Landow distinguishes hypertext from "four other important kinds of electronic textuality, each of which can exist within hypertext environments but is not itself hypertextual" (Landow 1997: 309).

(i) First of all, we have graphic representations of text. They are in fact drawings--and are recognised as such by the computer--that include written symbols. The fact that the computer does not recognise the text as text has important consequences. This kind of image/text "cannot be searched, parsed, or otherwise manipulated linguistically" (ibid.). However, it can be directly altered by graphical software and manipulated as a whole by other programs who sustain it.

(ii) The second and best-known type of electronic text is simple alphanumeric digital text. "this form of electronic text, which functions linguistically, appears in electronic mail, bulletin boards, and word-processing environments" (ibid.). This text is recognised as such by the computer and allows manipulation and full-text search in many systems.

(iii) As a third type of text, Landow identifies nonlinear text which does not "enable multisequential reading (...). [V]arious forms of nonlinear textuality include (a) computer games, (b) text-based collaborative environments, such as multi-user domains (MUDs) and MUDs that employ object-oriented programming methods (MOOs), and (c) cybertext, or text generated on the fly." However, we will later see that this nonlinear textuality is dubious in many respects, especially as soliciting the status of text in the stricter sense of the word. But thus we do not want to ignore its merits, not even for hypertext.

(iv) Finally, as a fourth type of non-hypertextual electronic text, Landow extends the scope of the term text to include simulations. "Text in simulation environments can range from computationally produced alphanumeric text (and hence have much in common with the nonlinear form) to instances of fully immersive virtual (or artificial) reality." Whether this extension is desirable can be contested, but we will not pursue this any further here.

For all these different sorts of electronic text common grounds can be discovered. Murray (1997, 71), for example, identifies four main characteristics of the electronic medium: (1) procedural, it is always the result of procedures, it can never appear out of the blue, (2) participatory, it allows interaction, (3) spatial, it involves a (virtual) displacement and (4) encyclopaedic, it can contain large amounts of information. Although these fairly abstract notions do not appear absolute, they give an idea of what the characteristics of a future electronic medium could be. We will now narrow our scope and look at the relationship between electronic text (ii) and hypertext more specifically.

Jerome McGann, observes that when using hard copy texts to analyse other hard copy texts, the scale of the tools is a burden for the inquisitor. He makes the comparison with the hard sciences: "In studying the physical world, for example, it makes a great difference if the level of the analysis is experiential (direct) or mathematical (abstract). In a similar way, electronic tools in literary studies don't simply provide a new point of view on the materials, they lift one's general level of attention to a higher order" (McGann 1995). As an illustration, he compares the electronic Oxford English Dictionary to its paper counterpart.

Remarkably, McGann does not seem to make any difference between explicit hypertext and e-text. "Computerization allows us to read "hardcopy" documents in a nonreal, or as we now say a "virtual", space-time environment. This consequence follows whether the hardcopy is being marked up for electronic search and analysis, or whether it is being organized hypertextually" (ibid.). He obviously sees a strong connection between the two. Later in his essay he does appear to have a preference for marked up documents, albeit the characteristics he enumerates are inherent to the electronic medium rather than specific to hypertext.

Another important quality of this new medium resides in its ability to allow simultaneous representation. When a book is translated into electronic form, the book's (heretofore distributed) semantic and visual features can be made simultaneously present to each other. "A book thus translated need not be read within the time-and-space frames established by the material characteristics of the book. If the hardcopy to be translated comprises a large set of books and documents, the power of the translational work appears even more dramatically, since all those separate books and documents can also be made simultaneously present to each other, as well as all the parts of the documents" (ibid).

This virtual or non-real time frame poses a serious cognitive problem. McGann also recognises its dubious status. "Of course, the electronic text will be "read" in normal space- time, even by its programmers: the mind that made (or that uses) both codex and computer is "embodied." This means that, from the user's point of view, computerization organizes (as it were) sequential engagements with nonsequential forms of knowledge and experience--immediate encounters with abstract or complexly mediated forms" (ibid.). Then what is the exact advantage of this type of structuring? What do we gain by allowing text to migrate to the computer screen? "If the limits of experience remain thus untranscended through computerization's virtual enginery, however, the new tools offer a much clearer and more capacious view of one particular class or "order of things"--in this case, the order of those things we call texts, books, documents" (ibid.).

But how should we understand 'virtual enginery' of such dubious stature? What is it that makes it such a powerful tool? First of all, we should note that it is more powerful in both a quantitative and qualitative manner. Not only does it allow us to store much greater amounts of data, it also creates or allows us to create and explicate relations that would not have entered the mind of the reader if the author had not set them out. This second characteristic, the higher number of associative links, is already both a qualitative and a quantitative notion! Quantitative because there are more links than in ordinary text, qualitative because some would otherwise remain unseen. But what are its consequences for reading, concretely? On the one hand, the fact that many more connections are made, makes us read more attentively and try to conjecture where the links are leading to, even if we do not necessarily pursue them. This draws the reader's attention both to the text itself as to the ‘author's mind’, her intended message, as she is trying to understand what is meant by the connection. On the other hand, if we do pursue the link, this allows us to avoid much uninteresting material. In the following subsection (3) we will deal with some proposed metaphorical representations that are to permit us to understand better what is being developed here.

Another important argument often employed for the implementation of a new textuality is the problem we are facing managing our ever-growing knowledge stock.

This ever faster changing rate of the production of knowledge poses a reasonable threat for science. The danger exists that many important scientific articles will never reach their intended destination. Or as Bush already noted in 1945, "even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled at by a few." Nobody knows how many world-shocking stories and theories lay buried under piles of paper, in libraries all over the world.

Since its coming into existence, many types of organisation have been proposed for the library, and just as many proved outdated after a few years or decades when the library showed considerable growth. In recent years most libraries have computerised their database. Now, the user can perform quite complex Boolean searches with key words or names or parts of titles of works. That is, when the user knows what he is exactly looking for. Many keywords, however, belong to a certain organisational system. In other words, they desire an understanding of the way books are categorised. Moreover, as Ted Nelson points out: "there is nothing wrong with categorization. It is, however, by its nature transient: category systems have a half-life, and categorizations begin to look fairly stupid after a few years" (Nelson, quoted in Landow 1997: 7).

Electronic text in general and hypertext in particular have two main advantages to these systems. First, they allow for multiple categorisation. Put differently, new categorisation systems can be devised which allow for a more organic structure. Keywords could be organised in both the classical hierarchical manner and a new kind of associative indexing at the same time, without one disturbing the other in any way. Moreover, once the traced text seems to comply with the user's wishes, it is far closer at hand for evaluation. One click of the mouse or other device and the user can see whether what she has found really corresponds to what the key words were promising. If this is not the case, a second click could inform the administrator of the hiatus or inconsistency.

The second and even more innovating change is the fact that the user can perform a full-text search. "In fact, a primitive form of hypertext appears whenever one places an electronic text on a system that has capacities for full-search retrieval or a built-in reference device, such as a dictionary or thesaurus" (Landow 1997: 312). Landow gives the example of his word-processing programme, which permits to search for a letter or text just by typing a word or string of words present in that text. The "program (...) quickly locates all occurrences of an individual word or phrase, provides a list of them, and, when requested, opens documents containing them. Although somewhat clumsier than an advanced hypertext system, this software provides the functional analogue to some aspects of hypertext" (ibid.).

Earlier, we have referred to this issue as a difference between an author and a reader determined connection, also called hard and soft link respectively. Note that one does not exclude the other. On the contrary, they need one another. On the WWW for example a user will employ a search engine to locate an interesting site dealing with a certain topic thus realising a soft or reader-determined link. Usually, this site will have a collection of links to other interesting pages. By following one of these the user pursues a hard or author-determined link. Thus the user has combined a classical search with the advantages and flexibility of associative indexing. However, the question of whether both types of linking are hypertextual is not definitively settled yet.

Recently, theorists have posed the question:

Evidently, the characteristic effects of this new medium all derive from its virtuality, the fact that computing stores information in digital codes rather than in physical marks on a physical surface. Because of the doubly layered structure of electronic text, the storage capacity of digital information (first level) can increase without affecting the second level, the size or form of the alphabetic sign. Moreover, the sequence and format in which the information is stored at the deeper level does not affect the concrete representation. This was different for microfilm for example. The fact that there was only one layer necessarily entailed that the size of the signs had to decrease when storage capacity wanted to increase and when the quantitiy of surface had to remain unchanged. Written electronic text now becomes a magic doorway looking out on immeasurable amounts of 0's and 1's, the province Gibson dubbed cyberspace. Keep describes it as:

First and foremost, a medium is something that is invented and only afterwards discovered. In other words, what we are dealing with is something we can manipulate but cannot control yet, something of which we cannot form a clear idea, simply because we have never met with the like. All we can do is try to build an image that suits our purposes. However, we should keep in mind that it is not the thing itself, not even a direct image of it. Earlier, we have attempted to apply the notions of quantity and quality to the concept of hypertextuality, thus establishing a basis for discussion. In this section we will develop this issue more profoundly by looking at the different metaphors and images we could employ to visualise how hypertext functions.

A Metaphor is probably the most powerful device to construe an image of something unknown. But what could be the metaphor to understand hypertext? How come that we are not able to construe a true image of the way it works? Is this new way of handling texts so novel that we cannot but accept it as it is? This is a question that occupies many theorists, but one that remains unanswered. All we can do is provide partial metaphors for the different aspects of hypertext. However, even together they do not fully cover the new possibilities; neither are they mutually exclusive. This is an account of a search that is still going today, and whether a final answer can be found or not remains an open question. Very likely, it will also become superfluous once we get to know the mechanism of hypertext itself better.

Hypertext could be seen as three-dimensional text, where ordinary paper text is only two-dimensional. The first dimension is purely spatial; it is a line of text, a vertical space necessary for signs to exist. The second dimension is of course also spatial. It allows for two links already, one to the preceding and one to the following word or sign. We, as readers and authors, however, experience this horizontal space primarily as temporal. One could argue that the vertical crossing of a page is also a process that takes time, but that is only so because we cross it on the horizontal second dimension. Of course, in some sign systems this is entirely different, but that is beside the point in this discussion. We are speaking metaphorically; we are trying to build a viable image of something virtual.

But what could this metaphorical third dimension be? As Keep observed in his description of cyberspace, users experience it as a place, a realm or province: somewhere you can go to that is not here. A link is often seen as a bridge crossing borders or even cliffs. Moreover, many theorists speak of the electronic frontier comparing it to where the wilderness used to start in America, where the laws of the civilised east ceased to exist and the Wild West began. But what is the value of such images, is it sheer romanticising about sitting in front of a highly sophisticated calculator? I believe there is more. The general enthusiasm among users must have a solid basis, a strong experience of something new: powerful yet unknown.

Conversely, when it comes to temporality, this is seen as a burden, rather than a blessing. Concretely, when reading--or should we say interacting or even dialoguing--the third dimension is experienced by the reader as temporal in that she has to decide whether she will engage in taking a shortcut 'into' the text or whether she simply maintains her course on the second dimension. This is negative in a certain way as it can produce cognitive overhead and slowing down of the reading process. However, in many hypertexts the possibility exists to just ignore the third dimension and only click at the end of the page, like in a book. On the other hand, links could also be seen as a positive characteristic. It draws the attention of the reader towards the text and the argument it is trying to develop. Nobody wants to miss interesting bits by overlooking a link! A second moment when this third dimension is experienced as being temporal is when the computer is preparing to present the page on the screen. Here temporality is experienced unilaterally as a burden. Of course, this second temporal moment is not interesting from a theoretical point of view as it will (hopefully) dissolve in the future when we will have more powerful hard- and software at our disposal.

If this third dimension is primarily spatial, should we consider this space as a wilderness, uncontrollable like the Wild West? Note that we are talking about hypertext here and not about copyright law for example. We are dealing with links, their sources and destinations. Proponents of hyperfiction--especially those involved with the type, which we will call rhizomes (Murray 1997)--will say yes, that we are dealing with something that transcends all structure and should remain that way. Theorists concerned with the informational capacities of hypertext structures, on the other hand, will defend a stricter structuring of where and how links should be placed and understood (cf. 2.2.4.). These two conceptions are directly opposed! In our formal classification of hyperfictions in the second part of this paper we will try to confront the two viewpoints and propose a solution.

Recently, more people have come to realise that linking should be guided and interaction controlled both by the author and the reader. "Participation in an immersive environment has to be carefully structured and constrained (Murray 1997: 106). For the author this means that she has to create only meaningful links and somehow try to guide the reader through her web. For the reader it means that there is an extra factor of the text that must be taken into account. She has to try to understand the extra dimension and interact with it, thus transgressing the pointless shoot-em-up clicking exercise some hyperfictions seem to be.

Many more metaphors have been proposed to clarify the notion of reading hypertext. The most traditional one--which many people even no longer experience as a metaphor--is the idea that we 'navigate' the internet: a direct consequence of what Murray identified as the 'spatial' quality of the electronic medium. Several subtle variations may be found like ‘wandering’ or ‘surfing’, but the underlying idea is the same. Murray advocates: "The visit metaphor is particularly appropriate for establishing a border between the virtual world and ordinary life because a visit involves explicit limits on both time and space (Murray 1997: 106). Moulthrop, however, notes

Whereas Moulthrop just takes interaction as his starting point, in a somewhat similar fashion as we have done for the distinction between warm and hot links, Balasubramanian goes even further. "[E]xisting metaphors such as electronic encyclopædia, notecards, journeys, browsing, windows, paths, guided tours, travel holidays, and survey-type maps are too restrictive and do not fully exploit the true potential of hypertext. The metaphor for hypertext should be based on "the general cognitive model of how individuals think about complex problems" (Balasubramanian 1995). As a proponent of the cognitive model, Balasubramanian seems to dream of a more direct connection between hypertext and our brain structure.

The aim of this approach is to make "hypertext systems (…) exploit the basic nature of human cognition, which is essentially organized as a semantic network of concepts linked together by associations" (Balasubramanian 1995). According to this view, a mental model should be devised "by employing self-generated metaphors in the context of a specific application while the implementation itself can be based on a general semantic model (…). Such an approach provides navigation and analysis of the underlying database independent of the specific application and the different mental models of individuals (ibid.). In the next section we will take a closer look at the reading and writing model he proposes and attempt to formulate a critique.

In the first chapter of State of the Art: Review on Hypermedia Issues and Applications (1995), Balasubramanian attempts to provide a (1) reading model and a (2) writing model for hypertext. Being largely based on early cognitive research, some parts may seem naïve and sometimes even biased. Nonetheless, it will prove a solid basis to start our discussion on the implications of hypertext on the process of reading and representing thought. As a final consideration in this respect we will briefly look at (3) the cyborg dream

Balasubramanian distinguishes four levels at which understanding takes place: lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. "At the lexical level, the user determines the definition for each word encountered. At the syntactic level, the subject, action and object of a sentence are determined. The meaning of a sentence is determined at the semantic level. The pragmatic interpretation of text depends on the integration of semantic meaning of text with the reader's knowledge of self and of the world" (Balasubramanian 1995). That a reader would determine a definition every time she reads a word is of course nonsense. Definitions do not take part in the reading process in any way. Moreover, when we determine a meaning only on the syntactic level, why would we have words then? Or how is it possible that a sentence can consist of only one word?

What Balasubramanian seems to do is transform Greimas's dialectic of knowledge acquisition into a practical framework, whereas it should be considered as a theoretical working hypothesis. Some nuances will therefore prove to be necessary. Balasubramanian apparently sensed that himself and thus adds the following utterly contradictory phrases. "While reading text, people proceed from a lexical level to the syntactic level, to the semantic and to the pragmatic levels in that order. All these levels interact continuously and they cannot be truly separated" (ibid.). Let us leave the discussion here. What should become clear from this description however, is the desire to turn hypothetical cognitive theorising into concrete practice. This is a frequently recurring phenomenon in literature about hypertext, especially in the early days.

More interesting, however, is the discussion about mental representation, which Balasubramanian sees as a form of propositions or relationships between certain entities.

Interesting is the dialogic perspective taken. Understanding and thus also acquisition of knowledge is seen as an interactive process between existing structures and new experience or theory. Expanding this interactive view to a dialogue between the text and the reader is only a small step.

Next, Balasubramanian tries to give an idea of how we should see the propositions or relationships between concepts and ideas and how it is precisely these relationships that give meaning to the concept.

Note the similarity between this representation and Derrida's notion of 'différance,' which returns in literary hypertext criticism. We should accept the dynamism and uniqueness of meaning-creation. But whereas Balasubramanian has the process of receding meaning arrest when "further activation of adjacent propositions does not change the propositions used to interpret the text," Derrida will say that the process of signification never ends.

In his writing model, Balasubramanian carries the concretising of theoretical notions even further. "Writing involves the following three phases: exploring, organizing, and encoding (...). Smith et al. call these three phases: prewriting, organizing, and writing" (ibid.). We will now briefly look at the symmetrical reading/writing model that is proposed.

The first phase in writing is pre-writing. "The writer retrieves potential content from long-term memory or external sources, considers possible relations among ideas, groups related ideas and constructs small hierarchical structures" (ibid.). Organising is the implementation of the available material into a more or less linear structure or at least one that can be represented by a linear medium. "This process involves abstract construction that involves perceiving subordinate/ superordinate relations, comparing abstractions, sequencing, proportion, and balance. Thus, the product of organization is a hierarchy of related concepts" (ibid.). Finally, encoding or writing consists in "translating the abstractions of content and the relations of a hierarchical structure into a sequence of words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, chapters, and illustrations" (ibid.).

Note that this graph is symmetrical both horizontally and vertically. On the left-hand side, we have the sequence we just described, performed by the author and on the right hand side a more or less inverted process, performed by the reader. This second process likewise consists in three stages: reading, understanding and remembering. Underneath this sequence of human actions, we follow the structure of the 'text' through the process. First, it consists of a network of ideas, then a hierarchy of concepts, then it is mediated sequentially, and finally the reader turns it into a hierarchy and a network again. Balasubramanian notes the relation between the left and the right side. "Thus, both reading and writing processes emphasize a lot on the non-linear nature of thinking, a natural process in human beings. Human cognition is essentially organized as a semantic network in which concepts are linked together by associations" (ibid.). However, after this analysis of the reading and writing process, his conclusion seems somewhat meagre. "Hypertext systems try to exploit this basic nature of cognition" (ibid.). It seems that there is more at stake than this!

How hypertext systems exploit this basic nature of cognition, Balasubramanian does not explicate, but I believe that his suggestion can hardly be misunderstood. When we look at the graph presented above and especially its symmetrical structure, and we combine this with the fact that hypertext very often assumes the form of a network, we cannot but conclude that the reason for this whole exposition is to try to find a closer connection between both poles. If ideas and concepts are generated in a network environment in our brain, then to be converted into linear writing and then back again to multilinear thought, why not attempt to find a shortcut between begin- and endpoint? If we could find a way to write as a network, this would not only make it easier for the author to produce a text, but, it seems, also for the reader to take it in. This is the idea of the cyborg or man-machine elevating human thought to unseen heights, a collaboration that would make our classical humanistic conceptions of man tremble or even collapse; a nightmare to some, a dream to others.

Traces of the cyborg dream can be found throughout the whole history of hypertext theorising. In 1945 Bush wrote "All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses--the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?" (Bush 1945). Bush believes that the connection between man and machine will be electrical: "In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another?" (ibid.). However, Bush immediately relativises by evaluating and taking a healthy distance from what he just suggested. "It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness."

Moreover, in this passage Bush was not talking about his memex in which he meant to implement the first hypertext system 'avant la lettre.' The latter was more than just a dream to him. "Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory" (ibid.). Important here is, I believe, that Bush's device was not called the bramex (brain) or mimex (mind), but the memex (memory extender). Indeed, Bush seems to cherish the cyborg dream, but he differentiates between different kinds of thought, thus making his allegations sound more realistic. "For mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be, powerful mechanical aids" (ibid.).

As already described in earlier sections, Bush's attempt to create a new form of classification was motivated by "our ineptitude in getting at the record (...), largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing" (ibid.). Diametrically opposed to traditional means of organisation, Bush places associative indexing.

Bush does not advocate associative indexing primarily to create an electrical shortcut between the two structures. He defends it because of the power he believes this sort of classification model has. The dream of the cyborg remains there on the background, but it takes a more realistic form. Why burden our memory with insignificant details when they are at our fingertips. Is it not more useful to be well able to use these fingers than to study bare facts without further theoretical importance, which is still obligatory in most curricula? Bush compares this change of perspective to a similar development that took place in the positive sciences. Note that the electronic calculator not even existed!

Of course, we should not take this comparison for granted. Memory is and always will be important. If you do not know what you are searching for, it is extremely difficult to find it, whatever system is used. Associative indexing can only provide a partial solution, since the user still needs a starting point. Moreover, are we not already cyborgs in a certain way? Plato accused writing of rendering the memory idle. Is writing not a technology we employ to help us think or at least to help us remember things? I believe an objection to this is hard to maintain. Or as Birkerts, a hypertext cynic and hardcopy elegist has it:

However, an obstacle very often overlooked in the cyborg discussion is that almost all our knowledge exists only in and through language. One of the main characteristics of human language is that it develops through time, it is therefore inherently linear. The link with the preceding and following letter, word or sentence or even text is necessary for language to have a meaning. If this is so, what could be the merit of a multilinear representation if we can only read it in a linear fashion? The change is not so much on the perceptual level, but rather on the structural. It is qualitative rather than quantitative although it bears characteristics of them both. What is about to change is not so much how we read, like many cognitivists seem to claim, but rather what we read, what the computer offers the reader according to her choices.

For thousands of years, symbolic representation has been considered superior to iconic representation, albeit not always to the same extent. In books, pictures almost always appear in the margin; they are pushed out of the main text to become a mere illustration, like a footnote. However, many believe that with hypertext a new era has commenced in which both types of communication of meaning could be given a more equal chance. Tolva compares our current day situation to that before the invention of the book. "Hypertext (...) in which visual elements (even full-motion video) are woven into the fabric of the text like a modern-day illuminated manuscript, allows visual manipulation of text blocks (called lexias) and graphical depiction of structural features. (Tolva 1995)"

The reason for this renegotiation of the power relations between the verbal and the non-verbal is the spreading computerisation of the printing process. The evolution was not started by hypertext nor even electronic text, but by modern printing techniques which made it easier and cheaper to include large pictures or drawings.

Electronic text in general and the WWW in particular are continuing this trend. Daily, new tools to furnish websites become available, and these new devices acquire more and more graphical power. The only practical objection at this moment--for the Internet i.e.--seems to be the lack of bandwidth, which makes it often cumbersome to surf to links piled with graphical features. Or as Stuebe has it: "Compounded with the slow-motion crawl of so many modems downloading so many graphics, hypertext tends to derail any coherent train of thought" (Stuebe 1996)

However, graphical elements still assume their inferior position. Nobody would say that she is reading a newspaper with quite a lot of articles or that there is an article going with the picture (one exception being photojournalism as it is practised by Life magazine since 1936). Indeed, the articles are taken for granted and the pictures are there to illustrate. But that could be about to change. When working with electronic text, the manipulation of pictures becomes as easy as the manipulation of text blocks. Moreover, as storage capacity and speed are augmenting, the 'price' to publish (in the shape of bytes and download time) is diminishing. This can easily be seen on the WWW for example, where the implementation of Java software caused a true explosion of moving images and banners. According to Zachry, "the elements of hypertext contend for the reader's attention. Hypertext is a bazaar in which multiple elements (links, control menus, animated objects, etc.) often vie with each other for attention" (Zachry 1997).

In contradistinction with Bolter, who will oppose the symbol and the icon (cf. infra), Landow approaches the opposition between symbolic and iconic signs from a different angle. He believes that writing should include both types of signs at the same time. "The expansion of writing from a system of verbal language to one that centrally involves non-verbal information--visual information in the form of symbols and representational elements as well as other forms of information, including sound-has encountered stiff resistance" (Landow 1997: 61). According to Landow, this is due to the hundreds of years of predomination of book culture. "Much of our prejudice against the inclusion of visual information in text derives from print technology. [However, l]ooking at the history of writing, one sees that it has a long connection with visual information, not least the origin of many alphabetic systems in hieroglyphics and other originally visual forms of writing" (ibid.). In handwriting the difference in expenditure and effort between writing a description and adding a quick drawing used to be a lot smaller than in printing. While printed texts became standard, this changed our conception of writing significantly.

Now, many theorists argue that we might experience a similar development with the textual migration from the book to the virtual. Critics like Landow believe that a new kind of writing including visual elements is only a logical development of our current situation. Furthermore, emphasis is placed upon the fact that hypertexts can show similarities with more iconic media like paintings as well as text. "The reader may "enter" a hypertext narrative just about anywhere, much like the viewer approaching a painting or sculpture. In such a hypertext environment, the reading process, like the gazing eye, jumps around associatively, moving not according to the work's formal structure but according to its content" (Tolva 1995). Consequently, some will see hypertext as a powerful hybrid of the symbolic and the iconic, others as a lowlife bastard child of the very same.

Hypertext writing has also been compared to this other "hybrid" form of poetry, ekphrasis. Tolva notes: "non-computerized writing, long considered a temporal art because of its paginated unidirectionality, has never been able to emulate the experience of the visual moment, though a small sub-genre of literature called ekphrasis has attempted to approximate it, archetypal examples being Homer's description of Achilles' shield, Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn", and Rossetti's Sonnets for Pictures" (Tolva 1995). Driven by a mimetic desire, poets wanted to create objects through words. Keats' Grecian urn e.g. has never existed outside his poem. It was an attempt to transgress the opposition between the material and the spiritual. The urn was a creation of the mind and it lived on in words, not in the physical world.

But for hypertext we have a different kind of ekphrasis. "Digital textuality effects this formal, structural, and perceptual experience of ekphrasis on a purely technical level. It is an ekphrastic medium that quite literally shapes the message [cf. hypertext syntax]. No longer a literary device or trope, ekphrasis as it applies to the computer is a practical description of the visual ways that the reader approaches the verbal text" (ibid.). This was probably the cause of the stiff resistance Landow experienced (cf. supra), a sort of 'ekphrastic fear,' "the moment of resistance or counterdesire that occurs when we sense that the difference between the verbal and visual representation might collapse, when the difference becomes a moral, aesthetic imperative rather than a natural fact that can be relied on." (ibid.).

Diametrically opposed to, but not irreconcilable with Tolva's ekphrastic fear, Bolter describes in his essay "Degrees of Freedom" a desire for the natural sign. "The power of written language to convey and convince is further undermined, as the inhabitants of cyberspace (more and more of us, though never all of us) succumb to what Murray Krieger has called the "desire for the natural sign" (Bolter, 1996). This is the desire to dispense with all arbitrary signs and to invest oneself in a second reality that approaches the first as closely as possible. "[The inhabitants of cyberspace] believe that a virtual environment rendered in immersive, three-dimensional graphics makes possible unmediated communication. Written communication, which is necessarily mediated, then becomes dispensable" (ibid.). Bolter thus opposes hypertext and text to virtual reality instead of old text (paper) to new text (electronic). Even text in the extended definition--i.e., including graphical signs like pictures and drawings--will ultimately be opposed to virtual reality. "[W]e do not see visual elements in the process of breaking out of the text, as we do in multimedia. The visual has already broken free and replaced text altogether" (ibid.).

In fact, Bolter argues, computer graphics are also symbolic in a way, but not like alphabetic signs are. The computer as alphabetic hypertext is symbolic by definition as it consists of arbitrary signs. The relation between signifier and signified can only in very few cases be accorded a degree of motivation. But even when it is motivated, it is still symbolic. Moreover, according to De Saussure, words derive their meaning from their relation to other words. Hypertext adds to these implicit links, explicit ones to other text chunks. However, these too are arbitrary acts of reference.

For Bolter, a graphic scene on a computer is viewed in a different manner, but it is symbolic. "The viewer recognizes the scene as something in the world (or in a possible world). She sees a building or a landscape or an object. And despite the fact that a computer-generated landscape has a cartoon-like geometry and brightness unlike the real thing, she can nevertheless see what the landscape is supposed to be a picture of" (ibid.). But it is still a 'picture of...;' it is not recognised as the thing itself. The desire for the natural sign is in fact a hidden desire for the actual object, for total immersion as Murray would call it.

The enthusiast of virtual representation dislikes looking at the computer screen; she prefers to look through it, to promote the illusion that the virtual world of graphics is a real world. Presently, even the most enthusiastic virtualist must at some point become aware of the screen as an artificial medium. However, he wants to limit these periods of awareness to an absolute minimum. The ultimate hope is that the computer can create a graphic environment so ‘real’ that the user can look through it without ever being reminded of the computer as the "man behind the curtain" (ibid.).

Murray believes that such a virtual experience could be valuable in a therapeutic way. "The holodeck [an imaginary virtual reality device], like any other literary experience, is potentially valuable in exactly this way. It provides a safe space in which to confront disturbing feelings we would otherwise suppress; it allows us to recognize our most threatening fantasies without becoming paralyzed by them" (Murray 1997: 25). Thus, it permits the user to hold a general rehearsal; it provides a simulation environment where one can learn how to deal with problems. Bolter argues that this is exactly what most MUD (Multiple User Dimensions) users are looking for, and that the symbolic environment they are placed in now is only due to technical restrictions. "Most MUDs do not set up an oscillation between rhetorical awareness and forgetfulness. They do not ask their users to look at the text, but only to look through it" (ibid.). As a consequence, from the moment a higher degree of immersion becomes feasible, the symbolic mode will be deserted for the iconic.

In 1992 Joyce still regarded hypertext as closely related or at least as a befriended colleague to virtual reality. When we place his description of "hypertext as virtual reality" against the background of Bolter's argument that the two are opposites, we get the impression that he as well has a desire for the natural sign.

Joyce has been too optimistic. There is indeed an emancipation of the iconic taking place, but whether this process will include virtual reality is doubtful. Thus, a new opposition--in a way again between the icon and the symbol--seems to appear. "Virtual thinking is the desire for the natural sign. Hypertextual thinking is the desire to complicate the relationship between the sign and what it stands for" (Bolter 1996). But here Bolter shows some hesitation, he realises that too extreme a separation is impossible. "When I put it this way, it sounds as if postmodern theory is hypertextual, as if postmodern writers would condemn virtual thinking as something close to false consciousness" (ibid.). However, he does not seem to find a solution.

Bolter is probably right if he says that the hypertextual mode makes demands on the reader, but not so much on the author. Whether the hypertextual mode is hard to maintain is a meaningless question when you consider our point of departure, whereby we have postulated a textual migration. Unless Bolter means that virtual reality will take over from hypertext he seems to be unnecessarily attacking the hypertext medium. But is it possible that such a shift from hypertext to virtual reality takes place? I believe not! Our whole knowledge system is based on words and texts. There is no other way to have a discussion, but in words. No philosophy can be expressed without words. We live in a discursive society and we will never be able to transgress that unless we go and live in a wordless virtual world entirely. Therefore, virtual reality should be considered as another electronic medium, one situated next to hypertext, perhaps even opposed to it, but certainly not one that could replace it.

In the early days of hypertext theory, Michael Joyce proposed the concepts of exploratory and constructive hypertext. The first type is probably the best known, since it constitutes the larger part of the WWW. It is a kind of hypertext that permits the reader to browse through fixed bodies of material without allowing her to make alterations. All she can do is search through the information available, hence the term ‘exploratory hypertext.’

Constructive hypertext, on the other hand, allows for more than one author; anyone is free to change the passage or the text she wants.

In the past, different systems have allowed different degrees of authorial control for its writers. NCSA Mosaic 1.0 for windows for example, the first really popular Internet browser, allowed the reader to alter what she wanted on someone else’s page. Because this alteration did not appear on the Internet itself but was controlled only by the working unit and its browser, the principle was later deserted when the number of pages became too big to keep a record of. It simulated a constructive environment, but failed to make it interactive.

More or less parallel with the distinction between exploratory and constructive hypertext, two different conceptions of the hypertext medium seem to have come about. In his essay "Purpose and Play in Hypertext," Mark Zachry writes: "Although it is seldom acknowledged, I believe there is a fundamental incongruity in the literature about hypertext. On one side, writers are arguing that hypertext has a strong pragmatic appeal: to facilitate the efficient creation and dissemination of complex documents and sets of documents of all kinds" (Zachry 1997). These are chiefly the theorists that follow the cognitive and computer scientific approach, rather than the literary (cf. 2.1.1.), to study hypertext. Their main aim is to make hypertext into a medium that can communicate more information and do this quicker and more easily than traditional texts. They want hypertext to be informational hypertext.

On the other side, we have the proponents of hypertext as a new literary medium. They "are claiming that writing is the creative play of signs, and the computer offers us a new field for that play" (Bolter, quoted ibid.). They want hypertext to be an idea space where the reader can wander around freely and stand still by those facets of the virtual world that interest her. For Zachry "these representative quotations betray a conflict that merits the critical attention of those who want to understand hypertext" (ibid.) Therefore, we will devote some space to this discussion to look at the claims and viewpoints of both sides and to evaluate the solution proposed by Zachry. We will first deal with (1) hypertext as a purposeful tool (cognitive approach), and then move on to (2) hypertext as a site of play (literary viewpoint).

Those theorists who approach hypertext as a purposeful tool assume that it is a new communication model that will permit the author to transmit larger amounts of knowledge with less effort. Note that the author takes initiative and that it is she that should control the communication chain, which makes this model very traditional.

For these users, the play made possible by the seducing quality of dialogic communication works counterproductive. "The dynamic functions of hypertext (e.g.: search and retrieval) are valuable, but the instability of unified meaning is a demon to be excised from the system" (ibid.). In other words, hypertext is supposed to become a highly productive polysystemic database that is consulted when a certain piece of information is needed. When this is the case, the user is supposed to be able to trace this information unit as quickly as possible and then leave the system.

In the purposeful view of hypertext, authors acquire a strictly delineated task. They have to use the available tools to design hypertexts that work in as predictable a fashion as possible. "They work with the assumption that a well-designed hypertext will produce a given set of results. When a hypertext fails to produce the results its creator envisioned, that is, when it fails to fulfil its purpose, the hypertext is a failure" (ibid.). But what should this purpose be? Is it a certain message that is to be communicated? Is it a message together with its interpretation? Or is it even useful to try to include the reader's reaction as well? This is of course too naïve! Every reader interprets the message in her own way, against her own background. Moreover, the reader's reaction can never be predicted because ‘the reader’ does not exist; there is only a reader and a model reader. What remains then is the message. Can a message be conveyed perfectly? Proponents of the purposeful view believe so or at least strive to obtain results as closely to the original objective as possible.

The objectives of an informational hypertext should be well defined. On the one hand, the reader wants to find a certain piece of information, and therefore she must be guided to it as swiftly as possible. I believe we can employ the distinction we introduced earlier between micro- and macrostructure. Here, we are clearly dealing with macrostructure. The reader must try to find his way between the different webs to the one containing what she is looking for. Once this is over, in other words, once the correct web is found, the power structure is almost always inverted. In an informational hypertext the author will try to take the reader by the hand and guide her through the text so as to make her understand it in very much the same way as the author wants to be understood. This change of direction or current in the communication is one possible criterion to distinguish informational from fictional hypertext.

The reluctance exhibited by the informational hypertext author to share power with the reader derives from the fear to be misunderstood. She is aiming at a clearly defined type of reader. "Rather than playful readers who are interested in browsing through hyperspace, ready for a serendipitous connection, a purposeful hypertext is designed to reward the sober, goal-orientated reader" (ibid.). This type of reader has a similar relation to the macrostructure of hypertext as the aforementioned author to her microstructure. "Either the reader or the author may define the objectives, but, once established, these objectives rule the communication in a well-designed hypertext. The possibility of being ‘lost in hyperspace’ is, perhaps, the most serious threat to the purposeful hypertext designer" (ibid.).

For Zachry, "the focus of these writers on ‘the needs of readers’ is inherently problematic in that it assumes that the author can predict the communicative interactions that will occur when a reader encounters a hypertext" (ibid.). Postmodern criticism, on the other hand, emphasises the dynamism of the meaning of texts as opposed to the traditional assumption that meaning is pre-established, just waiting to be discovered. Not just every text is different to every reader, but even the readings of one text by one and the same reader differ significantly according to the context. However, "Charney and many others assume that hypertext readers are unified subjects who can be neatly analyzed and identified. This analysis somehow yields the audience's ‘needs’--an equally difficult concept to identify outside a specific communicative act" (ibid.).

Finally, for the purposeful approach, hypertext as textuality is new, but at the same time considered already understood. Its proponents believe that hypertext is merely a swifter version of the conventional codex. "Links, nodes, graphics, and digitally manipulatable displays are not ignored in purposeful discussions of hypertext, but they are commonly viewed as textual enhancements that can be manipulated to serve the author's defined purpose(s). Authors are the architects of meaning who, with enough effort, can encode significance in well-constructed hypertexts" (ibid.). We will now see that literary theorists often add another dimension to this conception.

Jurgen Fauth, who believes that hypertext "has too many weaknesses and no advantages" (Fauth 1995), claims that "the co-operation (...) between the writer and the reader of a hyperfiction is not that of two collaborating artists, it is that between a game designer and a player" (ibid.). He seems to take this as an insult for the traditional reader. He sarcastically adds: "electronic literature will remain a game, just as all computer programming is a game.... In video games, the kind depicting spacecraft and deadly robots, the player competes against the programmer, who has defined goals and put obstacles in the player's path...." (ibid.).

Fauth even explains away the lack of closure from this standpoint. "No matter how competitive, the experience of reading in the electronic medium remains a game, rather than combat, in the sense that it has no finality. The reader may win one day and lose the next...." (ibid.). What is more, he believes that this playfulness will eventually effect the downfall of the new medium. "The impermanence of electronic literature cuts both ways: as there is no lasting success, there is also no failure that needs to last. By contrast, there is a solemnity at the center of printed literature--even comedy, romance, and satire--because of the immutability of the printed page" (Bolter, ibid.).

But whereas Fauth sees playfulness as an unavoidable weakness, others will regard 'play' as in 'movement or space for movement'--i.e. for the interpretation of signs-- as a positive quality. "For many of these theorists, hypertext is not so much defined by the technologies that make it possible, but by the basic nature of sign systems" (Zachry 1997). The arguments of these (mostly literary) critics are generally based on poststructuralist thought. "As Derrida argued before the advent of computerized hypertext, absolute meaning, in the twentieth century, has yielded to "the concept of play" wherein the movement of signification adds something, which results in the fact that there is always more" (ibid.). Some go even further: