I really like this connection between hypertext links and allusions. Whenever someone mentions allusions, I think back to reading Pound and Eliot in undergraduate lit classes and being overwhelmed by the explanatory footnotes that took 1/3 of the page. Can you imagine how much of those texts would be hyperlinked?
As to the question of them remaining allusions once they are made clickable, I think the power of allusion often resides in its subtlety and how the understanding of an allusion must be more complex than a quick link could be. Think back to those footnotes for "The Waste Land"; a simple reference to the literary/mythological/historical item often didn't complicate the poem nearly enough; not until some of us read widely for term papers did we begin to capture the richness of the allusions Eliot made. There seems to be a certain intellectual capital invested in allusions--some call it an insiders' club--that may lost its richness, complexity, and value if we quickly provide a gloss, whether it be a footnote or hyperlink. So do those allusions lose their value when glossed in an anthology footnote?
Greg
Greg Siering
Instructional Designer
Ball State University Teleplex
siering@bsu.edu
Kafkaz <Kafkaz@kwom.com 04/29 9:36 AM:
