Shandy Casimir

Dr. Hey

Literature in the Digital Age

Research Paper 2

Books have been the common source of reading for years until digital text happened and

now its the new form of written text. Digital texts transform the structure of the text to allow the

reader to comprehend and better understand the written texts. The electronic literature introduces

itself in a more interactive way, until the end when it gives us the written form of the ergodic text

for us to figure out the text. Ergodic literature is a term created by author Espen J. Aarseth in his

cyber text, Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. In the cyber text, Espen explains the term as,

non - trivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. Non - trivial means that the

reader goes through the story and choosing the paths in the digital text to find the different

outcomes of the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be

literature that does require the reader to perform certain tasks. The effort to traverse the text is

trivial, so that it doesnt occur outside of the readers thought process. Only when the reader eye

movement and randomly turning of pages. The non-ergodic text will not give any additional

problems to the reader such as have problems trying to understand the plot or remembering

quantities of the settings in where the text takes undergoes. In ergodic literature, not a lot effort is

expected from the reader to understand the text. It focuses mainly on the non-trivial and trivial

efforts that the reader is trying to comprehend and see what the author is trying to explain in his

or her text.
 Authorship within an electronic literature is considered dead and having no connection

with the reader. Espen has a contrasting form of the definition of literature, which he provides in

the beginning of the text.

Literature is a combinatorial game that pursues the possibilities implicit of its own

material, independent of the personality of the poet, but it is a game that a certain point is

invested with an unexpected meaning, a meaning that is not patent on the linguistic plane

on which we were working but has slipped in from another level, activating something

that on that second level is of great concern to the author or his society.

Espen believes that literature is supposed to be a text or poem that is meant to get a response

from the reader and closely relates to actual levels in a video game when there are unpredictable

moments that are meant to bring out a reaction in the reader. Espen conjured the term ergodic

from the Greek word ergon, which means work and path. There are some terms that relate to

what Espen was trying to form in the text. The terms are arborescent and rhizomal. Rhizomal

means that the text goes through random paths and giving different results to the text.

Arborescent means that the text follows in a linear path and doesnt stray to the end of the story

and back to the middle.

RedRidingHood by Donna Leishman is an animated interactive graphic, based on the original

story Little Red Riding Hood with a twist to it. The text RedRidinghood is about Red Riding

Hood going to her grandmas house to give her a basket. As Red Riding Hood goes to her

grandmas house, a boy that is following is supposed to be the

Wolf from the original story. The boy reaches the house Red Riding Hood and gets rid her

grandma before she gets there. There are two outcomes to the story; one of them is that Red
Riding Hood is pregnant and the other if you click on her stomach you get to see the baby. The

story ends there and can be restart to get the second outcome.

Espen relates these electronic literatures to adventure games. They are not texts the way

the normal literary work is a text. Espen tells readers how the digital texts are in, some way texts.

When you interact and read with an ergodic text, the reader is constantly reminded of how

incomprehensible the strategies and paths that cannot be taken. Each decision will make the text

more, and sometimes less, accessible to the reader. While playing RedRidingHood, each time I

found more and more images and paths. When observing this text it was very similar to the

Deviant: Possession of Christian Shaw. You have to click on certain images to progress in the

text. The only difference it was easier to follow because we know the original story, but this one

has a twist to it. This text is a non-trivial ergodic text because of the multiple paths it has and

made you choose what result you wanted in the end. The text also gives a written text of what

you done in the text.

A text that educates reader on what an ergodic text should be and shows what the author wants

them to reader to understand. The digital is Whos Writing. By Kristie S. Fleckenstein. Kristie

describe visual performance in her work, which is similar to how RedRidingHood is being read.

Kristie describes, "What has been insufficiently emphasized to date is the fact that this past oral

culture was also fundamentally visual". This means that before when readers were reading books

they were read orally so they could visualize a picture in their minds to capture what the author

was trying to get them to understand. This is what makes the digital text so interesting despite the

random parts , each text or poem is similar to one another but changes whenever the content of

the different authors comes which gives the reader different points of views as well as leaving a

lot up to the readers imagination due to limited details being supplied.

 The upbringing of the digital age in todays society has changed readers view of how

things can be viewed because more people prefer digital text to books. Roland Barthes work The

Death of the Author becomes realize. Roland describes the death of the author is when the author

dies physically but his work still lives on through his work but lives on through his work. Roland

was critical of the role of the author in modern literature, believing that when the reader read, it

signaled the death of the author. Although, Roland claims that focusing the attention on both the

author and his work confines the reasoning hidden their work. If the focus is on the reader, the

meaning behind his work is limitless. In order for the reader to be able to fully understand the

work of an author they must first forget about the author and trying to figure out who they are.

Roland thinks that the passing of the creator may be necessary for the birth of the readers.

Regardless if the author is acknowledged will be those maker the text, Roland intimates that

power and essentialness once of the reader, primary. It will be normal to people to connect to

content for its author, much on the web. Factually, authorship can't vanish or fade for it is what

permits the authors of the past to still live on in today's society. However, electronic literature

would not the death for authors, but rather are serving spare the authorship. This best implies

those authors idea will not pass on because of human advancements; it will really escalate due to

it.

The last author that show why ergodic are the new form of written text. Walter

Benjamins work known as The Work of Art in the Age if Its Technological Reproducibility.

Benjamin explains in this text that technology can reduce the value of the original work. In the

text RedRidingHood it was reduce to something less than the original story that was quite

famous. In doing the creation of this text, it made this original less famous or known because the
ergodic version put the twist on it as well as it being arborescent. The fact that most readers tend

to read more online the original will soon fade and the death of that author will be no more.

From understanding, what the authors contributed different viewpoints on what it means

to be an author and how electronic literature changes the perception of the reader. Although, the

three seem to agree that if the reader pays more attention to the text they will not be able to

visualize what the author is trying to explain. Roland made this specifically clear in Death of the

Author by explaining that the author lives on through their work even if the dead. Espen with the

concept of ergodic literature when the author is remove from the readers thought process the

text would be able to completely apprehend the work of the author without focusing so much on

trying to figure out what the author was thinking when he wrote the story. These kinds of digital

texts and animations can seem rather confusing and weird, which may cause the reader to

wonder what the author is trying to have them, understand. It is not until they forget about who

really is the author is for a short time. Then the reader will finally get what the author is saying

through the ergodic text they created.

 Works Cited:

Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Ed.: The John Hopkins

University Press. London: John Hopkins University Press. 1997.

Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. Image, Music, Text. Ed.: Steven Heath. New York:

Hill and Wang, 2001.

Benjamin, Walter. "None." The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.

2008. n/a. 12/18/2017.

<https://monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Benjamin_Walter_1936_2008_The_Work_of_Art_in_the_A

ge_of_Its_Technological_Reproducibility_Second_Version.pdf>.

Fleckenstein, Kristie. "Who's Writing." none. 2005. n/a. 11/10/2017.

<http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/11.3/topoi/fleckenstein/visual_oral.html>.

Leishman, Donna. RedRidingHood