My final graduate school paper was on the role of linearity in classical
literature and how women subvert and become subverted by it. My primary
focus was on The Descent of Inanna, but I also discuss The Rig Veda,
the Persephone myth from The Homeric Hymns, and the Hebrew Bible. This
paper was an extension of what I had written about the entire semester.
Notes On Hypertext
I. Hypertext takes on four forms:
- A. Reader Choice, Intervention, and Empowerment
- B. Inclusion of extra linguistic segments (images, music, sound)
- C. Complexity of network structure
- D. Degree of variation and layer in literary elements (plot, setting, etc)
- E. There are three types of hypertext-fictional, informational, and educationa
- Hypertext challenges narrative and all literary form based on linearity
- Hypertext fiction’s plot, setting, etc are subject to change
- Hypertext is a threat to literature and its institutions; they are known, hypertext is the unknown
- Hypertext is non or multi linear
- Hypertext opens major questions about a story and plot by doing away with linear organization
- There is no official “version” of a story; each reader implements their own version as they proceed through the text
- Hypertexts can continue infinitely and indefinitely
- Hypertexts always have an end, but there is not always closure