The literariness of electronic literature
The paper overviews the contemporary status of electronic literature and the ways in which it challenges the old concept of literariness. The development of computational technologies modifies the writing and reading practices, generating a new type of aesthetics. Seen as a form of avant-garde writing, or as a prolongation of OuLiPo’s literary principles, electronic literature is largely indebted to the distinctive features of the digital medium where it is produced, distributed and accesed. The numerous genres of electronic literature (hypertext/network fiction, interactive fiction, e-mail and SMS novels, kinetic poetry, locative narratives etc.) display both various artistic creeds, and a large category of software and hardware devices, because the history of electronic literature also comprises its technological background. There is an entire set of changes occuring when the text leaps from the flat page of the printed book to the interactive environment of the screen, and literary theory combines with new media theory to outline these new openings of the literary field.
Keywords: electronic literature, interactive fiction, reading, interaction.
