Modeling Literature: How Generative Literature Produces Literature Anew

In this paper, I regard generative literature as a model-object from the perspective of Mahr and Erdbeer’s application of model theory in order to give insight into the functioning of generative literature as well as further specify the new research focus of literary model theory (Erdbeer 2014). Through the modelling practice of literature generators, own preconceptions of what literature is (supposed to be), are projected. In its algorithmic writing, generative literature mimics intention-typical literature while at the same time destabilizing its very foundations. Through multiple short case study analyses, I outline (1) how generative literature self-reflexive in the sense that it is a model of literature, (2) how literary models change due to practices in generative literature and (3) how temporality is modelled in generative literature.

(Source: Abstract ICDMT 2016)