Gimlé

Below is a table which outlines the foundation concepts behind my Phd preparative work.

The basic idea is to test out the applicability of select traditional narrative theories to text-based hypertext works.

The goal is to attempt to bridge the artificial divide between new media hypertext works and traditional literary concepts and traditions.

These are blatant generalisations. An attempt to focus on the foundation ideas behind the research.

Theory—Test Schema:

Theoretician	Theory	Test Focus	Test Proposal
Bakhtin	Multivocality: Numerous voices—each a novelistic image of a language—which interact as a narrative structure.	Does multivocality (which does not specify linearity as a specific structural feature) allow for a nonlinear representation of the novelistic text?	Test a multivocal, novelistic text by adding a well-designed nonlinear interface.
Derrida.	Parergon: something that is exterior yet part of the work. It frames, contains, intervenes, limits and remarks upon the work itself.	Can the theory of the parergon be used as a framework for the hypertextual integration of footnotes, appendices and notes into a tighter context with the work itself?	Contextualize a linear piece with a hypertext commentary.
		The integration of a hypertextual framework of footnotes, appendices and notes (the parergon) into multivocal novelistic work.	Contextualize a multivocal piece with a hypertext commentary.
Levi-Strauss	Binary Oppositions: The tensions between fundamental opposites in a narrative as a fundamental driving force behind narrative structure.	How does a binary structured work stand up to a hypertextual contextualisation.	Contextualize a binary structured piece with a hypertext commentary.
		Does a binary structured work (which does not specify linearity as a specific structural feature) allow for a nonlinear representation?	Test a binary structured text by adding a well-designed nonlinear interface.

Notes:

All test works will be based on the same pre-existing work.

The most likely candidate at this point is “Egilssaga”, one of the Icelandic Family Sagas.

The fact that both the Icelandic version as well as its English translation are freely available and extensively studied makes it a good foundation for this particular study.

Neither Bakhtin’s theories on the novel nor Claude Levi-Strauss’s ideas on binary oppositions necessarily presuppose a linear representation.

Rather, they focus on structure in terms of a narrative process and tension between structural components.

The narrative process, while linear in their examples, can be nonlinear without disrupting the basis of their structural theories.

It is very unlikely that anything substantial can be learnt from each individual test project.

The meat of the research is in the comparative phase when the five hypertext adaptions are compared with each other as well as the original texts (both Icelandic and English versions).

Baldur,
Clifton, Bristol.