Subject: Re: Hypertext Starter
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 23:54:49 -0500 (CDT)
From: Susan Elaine Antlitz <musea2@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>
Reply-To: online99@nwe.ufl.edu
To: online99@nwe.ufl.edu

On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Johndan Johnson-Eilola wrote:

I think of hypertext as more of an *aspect* or dimension of text than a concrete type of text. (I think this goes back to a definition from Nelson's _Computer Lib/Dream Machines_, where he defines hypertext as the linkage from one node to another, noting that linear text is actually the simplest form of hypertext.)

This is the view of hypertext I'm most sympathetic toward. "Hypertextual" elements existed before and extend beyond the web (books with cross-references, the allusions in poetry, etc.). However, the web has made us more aware of the inherent hypertextuality of all texts, and even the interactions between texts and larger contexts beyond them. Basically, it can be difficult to "define hypertext" because at the same time we are attempting to define it, it is simultanously redefining how we see all texts and even the world. It's becoming part of how we understand things-- a textual paradigm that is rapidly enveloping our understanding. The web just makes "hypertext" more visual, easier, more directly and instantaneously accesable, and therefor also more deliberate and more of a conscious concern.

I'm not sure where exactly I was going with that thought, but I thought I'd share it just in case anyone might find an application for it.

Susan Antlitz
Western Illinois University

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