English 811 is entitled Electric English and this title leads a student to understand the complex problems that this title ensues. Digital Literature is a subjective term that has many different connotations. The term contemporary leads one to primarily derive a concept of current topics that apply the real world connections that apply to everybody that is exposed to the digital format. However, the word “Digital” takes on many different functions of it’s as it pertains to literature. The concept of digital is most often associated with the computer, and the idea of images conjoined with text, yet when the medium is switched, perhaps to movie or television, the concept of digital literature is deemed not serious in nature or possibly making tragic attempts at being a serious contender for the current reigning champion of literature: the print culture. If the concept of art, whether it be: theatre, film or literature, is to reach a wide array of multiple audiences with universally appealing themes, than the idea of digital literature certainly has the ability to be considered as a formidable piece of the literary pie. It can take a back seat to the print format of literature, because of its inability to sway the opinions of the academic mind. However, where the world switched from pictorial images upon a cave wall, as the formidable means in which to communicate and convey stories and ideas, to the oral tradition we are witnessing a literary crossroads where we, as scholars are learning more about a new medium that needs to be considered a viable source of literature.
This class took me on a journey from a safe and comfortable understanding of what literature is and revealed to me an uncomfortable realization that my notion is antiquated and stoic. It is through this epic adventure that I was able to realize that what I once believed as being the foundation of education, literacy, is being challenged and revolutionized during my life span. As much as I wage battle against it, it will only grow more potent. It is with this newly gained knowledge of digital literature that I am able to return to my students and teach them using new and improved methods that are visually appealing, interactive and educational at the same time.
My own Definition of Literature: Literature is the conveyance of ideas through visual representations of thoughts promoted by an author and received by a reader that has ensues some sort of change in its audience. The impact changes the reader in some way, it either "delights or instructs" Literature is a marriage of form and content set to create a reaction from its audience. This interaction between reader and author is a discourse. It is an active process where the reader must participate via interpretation, evaluation and personal connection. It is through this merging of author intent and the reader response that meaning and understanding of theme and tone emerges. The visual representations can come across in varying forms: words, pictures or illustrations and can meet the needs and desires of many varying audiences, thus creating universal appeal. To my own understanding of what is the purpose of literature: Literature is the way to convey (instruct) audiences the value of the human endeavor. It teaches one to bask in the awesomeness of the mundane and become enlightened by the vastness of the universe and its many intricacies. What is the function of literature? Through a form of entertainment it is designed to explore emotion and strife through visual and emotional experiences that transcends pages and scenes to reach and impact the reader. At the beginning it seemed so clear to me. However it is in my own definitions that cracks to my fundamental founding principals are formed.
Last year, I was teaching a multicultural literature class that I focused on race and gender as themes to explore in American Literature. While I was teaching the feminist movement in literature I came across the following website: http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/gilman.htm. This website worked very well with my students because it exposed them to a journey with the text. If you check this out please choose some of the hyperlinks and see where they bring you. This form of texts does seem to influence its reader, almost in the way the choose your own adventure stories did. It allows the student/reader to be more interactive with the text. I had great success with this tool in the class room and I also found my students interested enough to read the criticisms at the beginning. I was suppressing my interest and excitement of this technology. I have seen it influence the interests of my students and I knew that it was a good tool, but I also knew the original piece were written for a print culture not a digital one. That is where I found myself conflicted, and I took the safe passage across the murky waters of “digital” literature.
I felt isolated and alone while I was reading the article "The End of Books."
I found myself laughing out loud at all the obnoxious remarks Coover was making. He uses rhetoric in this article to push his obvious passion and notions about Electronic literature. Some of the words that caught me off guard were: "Indeed, the very proliferation of books and other print based media, so prevalent in this forest harvesting, paper wasting age, is held to be a sign of its feverish moribundity, the last futile gasp of a once vital form before finally passes away forever, dead as God." He makes a profound argument that paper is a waste of forest resources, and if we don't join the digital age we too are just adding to the problem, and if we don't join it will still pass us by. It is hard to argue that Coover is attacking our guilt and thus making what he is saying more important and indeed dire. To say that print is as dead as God however seems to be a bit overboard. If he is using it as a metaphor to say God is only alive because of a printed book, he has just lost millions of people from his audience. Never mind the fact the line reads in bad taste anyway.
However he goes on to say; "...true freedom from the tyranny of the line is perceived as only really possible now at last with the advent of the hypertext..." Wait, I do not want to be oppressed any longer, I too want freedom. I too want to be joining this bandwagon that is an affront to written and printed literature. Psyche! I soooooooo do not want to be a part of a culture that seems to become outdated as soon as a new program is invented, published and run on multiple computers. Coover wrote this article in 1992, and in 17 years the technology has far surpassed this conceptualized literature. However, teachers are not teaching this kind of literature in school, or how to produce this type of creativity 17 years later. How can this be a living breathing art if it is not fed or if it is not nourished by new authors or creators? Why are authors that are successful in the print culture not hopping aboard this run away train? Why does this seem like a toy and the people using it tinkerers?
I began to think about the implications to that idea. My son, 6 years old, is computer savvy. He has been able to read and write since he was 3 years old. Since he was 4 years old he has been able to navigate cyberspace and find websites such as Noggin.com, Nickjr.com and other educational sites. He has been able to play several educational games that have taught him to read and write better. He has learned to spell, as a way to find what he wants on youtube, which is mostly NASCAR videos and cartoon heroes and it was at this moment I became a believer in “digital” literature.
I will agree that the computer can be used as a great educational tool, but to say that the print age is dying, I am not sure that I can buy that. I believe the computer can instruct on how to build the tools needed for academia, however the work still needs to be written. Whether it be Math, Science, English or Health the written word, the one that is constant will always be the overpowering element. It appears to be concrete and is the exact same written text the students read ten years ago gives it the appearance of longevity so the students feel that what they are learning is meaningful. When reading this article I was angry, but it was in the reflection of what I was angry about that helped me better understand the value of “digital” literature. My anger sent me off on a tangent that seemed to spin me upside down. I began to feel like Lear, outside yelling at the storm.
The use of literature allows the subjective concept of interpretation to be translated by the audience through the text’s role on paper, stage or screen. The audience member, reader or viewer, will than bring forth their own ideas and connections to those texts being written and played out. Here is where the audience member may be influenced by their own prior knowledge, where the intended meaning is lost and consumed by their own interpretation. It is here where the current state of being, of the viewer, influences their own interpretation of the “digital piece”. This could make a classic piece of art and literature, and bring a contemporary interpretation of the text as it is playing out in front of them. Thus leaving the viewer, reader and audience in a place to discern whether or not the “digital” age has brought digital literature to its contemporary form creating tomorrow’s classic art or does it not become art at all? The power is in the audience’s control.
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