Born-Digital and Electronic Literature

Some texts are not digitized versions of print but works created to exist only on the screen: hypertext fictions, generative poems, interactive narratives. Electronic literature studies how computation, interface, and code become expressive materials, and how reading changes when the text is also a program.

Definition

Literary works that are created in and depend on digital media for their meaning and operation, together with the critical study of how computation, interactivity, and code function as literary materials.

Scope

Covers literary works conceived for digital media: hypertext and interactive fiction, generative and kinetic poetry, and other born-digital forms. Includes theories of ergodic and electronic literature, the materiality of digital media, and the preservation challenges posed by works tied to obsolescent platforms.

Core questions

• What distinguishes a born-digital literary work from a digitized print text?
• How do interactivity and code change the act of reading?
• What is the relationship between a work's meaning and its technical platform?
• How can ephemeral, platform-dependent works be preserved?

Key concepts

• Hypertext
• Ergodic literature
• Materiality
• Generative text
• Interface
• Platform obsolescence

Key theories

Ergodic literature and cybertext

Aarseth defined ergodic literature as work requiring nontrivial effort to traverse, theorizing cybertext as a machine for producing variable expressions through reader action.

Media-specific analysis

Hayles argued that literary criticism must attend to the specific material and computational properties of the medium, since meaning in electronic works is inseparable from how they are built and displayed.

History

Hypertext fiction emerged in the late 1980s with works distributed on disk, while interactive fiction had roots in early text adventures. Aarseth's 1997 Cybertext and Hayles's books in the 2000s established a critical vocabulary. The Electronic Literature Organization, founded in 1999, has anthologized and worked to preserve a field continually challenged by changing platforms.

Debates

Continuity with or break from print literature

Scholars dispute whether electronic literature extends literary tradition or constitutes a distinct form requiring its own categories of analysis.

Key figures

• N. Katherine Hayles
• Espen Aarseth

Seminal works

• aarseth1997
• hayles2008
• hayles2002

Frequently asked questions

Is a PDF or e-book electronic literature?

Generally no. Electronic literature refers to works created to exploit digital media — interactivity, code, animation, hyperlinking — rather than print texts delivered in a digital container. An e-book of a novel is a digitized print work, not a born-digital one.