In S/Z, Roland Barthes (1970) used the term "lexia" to denote "units of reading" which would facilitate the analysis of the "plural text", for "if we want to remain attentive to the plural of a text . . . we must renounce structuring this text in large masses, as was done by classical rhetoric and by secondary-school explication: no construction of the text: everything signifies ceaselessly and several times, but without being delegated to a great final ensemble, to an ultimate structure" (p. 11-12). Hypertext theorists such as George Landow have been quick to appropriate this term and use it to denote a hypertext "text chunk"--ideally the amount of text and/or image which will fit on one screen. I have appropriated the term "lexia" and use it to refer to each separate document within a hypertext from which (and to which) associative links are made.
To the path of Theory.