LITERATURE ON THE INTERNET: AN ENTANGLED LITERATURE?

Abstract

Released from the materiality burden by digital technologies, the hypertextualized literary text which is made available on the internet becomes more empowered and efficient in several ways: it can now be linked to a vast quantity of contextual explanations that were impossible to be included due to the limitations of the printed book, and it also becomes accessible to a more global public reader than a local one. On the other hand, once it is disseminated on the internet, the literary text can undergo an obliteration of the material conditions of production that constitute a crucial part of its meaning. These two perspectives can be perfectly understood in the work of the English Poet William Blake, a multimedia author avant la lettre.