The Importance of the Term of Narratology in Electronic Literature

Research Collection
Description: 

This research collection is created for the paper for the research paper that is a final assesment of Digital Humanities in Practise course in University of Bergen. I will analyse the connection between creative works that are mentioned in the critical writings that are emphasizing the term of narratology in electronic literature.  

At the moment, The ELMCIP Knowledge Base of Electronic Literature is the most suitable source for the analysis of this topic. Even if we cannot apply the same conclusion for all of the genre of the Electronic Literature, we can at least make generalizations about data that is uploaded to the database, which probably gathers most of the existent information about the genre of electronic literature. The database consists of cross-referenced entries on creative works of and critical writing about electronic literature as well as entries on authors (Scott Rettberg 2012). All nodes are cross-referenced so that it can be clearly seen which works were linked to the critical articles referencing the works.

The main goal underlying the inquiry of the research paper, is to find out how important the term of narratology is for the critics of electronic literature and which creative writings were mentioned the most. The research will also include analysis tags that were used in both critical writings about narratology in electronic literature and creative works that were referenced. The reasons of the usage of certain tags more then others as well as the reasons why some creative works are being referenced.

The art of narration in literature or simply the structure of a written story has been described, discussed and re-invented multiple times since 20th century. If we think about narratology in very general terms of structuralism, every single object, event, story, article, invention and a variety of surroundings have a certain structure and order. One of the highlighted critics in structuralism, Claude Levi Strauss, explained the terminology with a help of a myth. Ancient Greeks probably saw their myths as the rules for life or a way to explanation for the idea every action has its consequence. Sequence of events is vital to understand any story that is told, written or performed, naturally it raises a simple question if the first action does not happen how can the second one and all of the following ones happen. What if the rules or a well-know sequence of events are disrupted?

While the critics and researchers are debating on the deep level of upgrading the narration terms from literary perspective to the digital world, in my research I will portray the data concerning the topic uploaded to the ELMCIP database.

Critical Writing:

Title Author Yearsort descending
Ontological Metalepses, Unnatural Narratology, and Locality: A Politics of the [[Page]] in Tomasula's VAS & TOC Lance Olsen
Exopoiesis and literariness in the works of William Gibson, Mark Z. Danielewski, Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph Ugo Panzani
Narratology: The Form and Function of Narrative Gerald Prince 1982
Interactive Drama: Narrativity in a Highly Interactive Environment Marie-Laure Ryan 1997
Omission impossible: the ergodics of time Markku Eskelinen 1998
Hypertext Fiction in the Twilight Zone Raine Koskimaa 1998
Cybertext Narratology Markku Eskelinen 1999
Piecing Together and Tearing Apart: Finding the Story in afternoon Jill Walker Rettberg 1999
The Language of New Media Lev Manovich 2000
Cybertext palimpsests - literature to the nth degree Markku Eskelinen 2000
Discourse Timer: Towards Temporally Dynamic Texts Markku Eskelinen, Raine Koskimaa 2001
Beyond Myth and Metaphor: Narrative in Digital Media Marie-Laure Ryan 2002
Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method Gérard Genette 2002
Hyperworks: On Digital Literature and Computer Games Anna Gunder 2004
Genre Trouble: Narrativism and the Art of Simulation Espen Aarseth 2004
Narrative and the Split Condition of Digital Textuality Marie-Laure Ryan 2005
Repetition and Recombination: Reading Network Fiction David Ciccoricco 2005
Event-Sequences, Plots and Narration in Computer Games Fotis Jannidis 2006
I, Chatbot: The Gender and Race Performativity of Conversational Agents Mark C. Marino 2006
Generating Narrative Variation in Interactiv Fiction Nick Montfort 2007
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Akvile Sinkeviciute