04/17/2000
The Electronic Labyrinth Home Page by Christopher KEEP & Tim McLAUGHLIN
The term hypertext describes an electronic text composed of nodes (blocks of text) which may be linked together non-sequentially. The World Wide Web is an example of a limited hypertext. Here, each web page is a node, and links may be made to other pages, either at the same site or one on the other side of the globe. When the nodes contain elements of a literary work, hypertext becomes a site for artistic creation.
It is instructive to define hypertext not by packaging or technological features, but rather by the experience of the author/reader. Hypertext provides for multiple authorship, a blurring of the author and reader functions, multiple reading paths, and extended works with diffuse boundaries. With the inclusion of sound, graphics, video, and other media as nodes, hypertext (here often referred to as hypermedia) expands the world available to a writer.
Contents Bibliography Timeline IndexWriting and Reading Electronic Hypertexts
Literary Formats: From Manuscripts to Electronic Texts