Thirteen Ways of Looking at Electronic Literature, or, A Print Essai on Tone in Electronic Literature, 1.0

This experimental essai is written in performative awareness of the challenges of tone in electronic literature. It is a developing piece and will appear in writethroughs, readthroughs, playthroughs (the sous rature mark seems appropriate) elsewhere.2

Notes

1. Unlike various software packages, literary criticism and journal articles do not typically come in a beta version, ahead of enhanced definitiveness in the wake of trials and feedback received. There are some exceptions but fewer than might be thought, as the cut and thrust of critical exchanges in print scholarship does not provide any precise analogy. Gérard Genette's Narrative Discourse Revisited (1983), for instance, written following responses to Narrative Discourse (1972), is not quite the kind of example we have in mind. The point is here made by way of invitation, as this piece is a developing work; reactions and suggestions are welcome.

2. This is the text-only version of ‘Thirteen Ways’. Versions 1.1 and later are marginally more graphics-intensive.