When I read a story or novel, I turn off distracting sounds, get into a comfortable seat and focus on the writing. When I read online, I sit at my desk and look straightforward at the monitor. Online reading keeps the reader connected to the present or in the moment. All elements of peripheral vision are in plain view. Print reading, i.e. looking down onto a page, pushes the periphery and the present or current moment into shadow. Therefore, it is easier to access the alternate reality or time frame implied by the story. The meaning of the story is dramatically affected when it is set in the past before the age of computers. The characters, plot and language of the "Birthmark" seems even more archaic online than in print. In other words, the reader knows that a story is being read online as an exercise. The creative imagination that allows a reader to mentally slip into an alternate reality, thus suspending disbelief (as watching a movie) is limited by the visual elements surrounding the online text. Also, there is a missing element for a person accustomed to reading novels or short stories. The texture and feel of the page is missing. Over time, these elements become part and parcel of the reading experience and the impact of the story. Online reading, especially, contemporary plot situations, fly out at the reader from the monitor screen and become a part of reality.
visited *loading* times
In 1921, Roman Jakobson drew a distinction between the linguistics of literature and the linguistics of practical discourse. He said that the object of study in literary science is not literature but literariness, that is, what makes a given work a literary work. I went back and re-read Stuart Moulthrop’s essay, Hypertext and the Laws of Media. The only aspect of contemporary "text" that he does not see a hypothetical end to is "literacy." He suggests that what we are seeing in contemporary culture is not the "death of literature" rather the death of "post-literacy" suggesting that hypertext may signal a world where literacy becomes common. Therefore, perhaps we can argue that an intrinsic quality of a text is its "literariness" which I am defining as literate-ness or literacy. In short, we can read the text or in the case of one who cannot see – we can feel the text. Moulthrop suggests that ALL text may eventually become the same kind of text with that single quality – literate-ness. I may be poorly interpreting Moulthrop. Moulthrop goes on to talk about "secondary literacy." He says to write at this level is "to reprogram, revising the work of the first maker." This reminds me of publications like Cliff’s Notes where a writer summarizes a literary work so that the student doesn’t have to read the text. I have been searching for the short story by Margaret Atwood’s "Rape Fantasies." The library copies are checked and I went online to see what I could find. Ultimately, I wound up buying the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, but in the meantime I found an e-book that I was able to purchase for $3.95 which summarizes and details everything you can think of about Rape Fantasies without providing the short story to read. What a terrible blow to the author. A version of interpretation is being sold online that will certainly create multiple understandings of the text which the reader does not have in this instance. No wonder postmodernism declares the death of the author! By the way, the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Review is Information Technology: 10 Challenges for the Next 10 Years. The article, "Scrolling Through the Years" is particularly interesting for our class in the way Carolyn Segal describes her vision of what will happen to print.
When I read a story or novel, I turn off distracting sounds, get into a comfortable seat and focus on the writing. When I read online, I sit at my desk and look straightforward at the monitor. Online reading keeps the reader connected to the present or in the moment. All elements of peripheral vision are in plain view. Print reading, i.e. looking down onto a page, pushes the periphery and the present or current moment into shadow. Therefore, it is easier to access the alternate reality or time frame implied by the story. The meaning of the story is dramatically affected when it is set in the past before the age of computers. The characters, plot and language of the "Birthmark" seems even more archaic online than in print. In other words, the reader knows that a story is being read online as an exercise. The creative imagination that allows a reader to mentally slip into an alternate reality, thus suspending disbelief (as watching a movie) is limited by the visual elements surrounding the online text. Also, there is a missing element for a person accustomed to reading novels or short stories. The texture and feel of the page is missing. Over time, these elements become part and parcel of the reading experience and the impact of the story. Online reading, especially, contemporary plot situations, fly out at the reader from the monitor screen and become a part of reality.
