Abstract
Lofty reflections on the cultural significance of information technology are commonplace now. ‘Tedious as they can be, they serve an important social function. Some distribute general knowledge to society at large, some send it to particular groups whose professional history makes information about information an important and perhaps problematic issue.1
To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour.
— William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
Or if it indeed be so, that this other Space is really Thoughtland, then take me to that blessed region where I in Thought shall see the insides of all solid things. . . . In that blessed region of Four Dimensions, shall we linger on the threshold of the Fifth, and not enter therein? Ah, no! Let us rather resolve that our ambition shall soar with our corporal ascent.
—E.A.Abbott, Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions
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Notes
The simplest definition of hypertext is Theodore Nelson’s “nonsequential writing” (Literary Machines [Sausalito, CA: Mindful, 1990], sec. 5,2).
This revaluation of Dickinson studies was sparked by the great facsimile edition of the poet’s original fascicles, edited by R. W Franklin, The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. Since then the work of Susan Howe and her students has been only slightly less significant, especially the edition of Dickinson’s fragments edited by Marta Werner (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2000) and the essay by Jeanne Holland, “Scraps, Stamps, and Cutouts.” Howe’s seminal essay is indispensable: “These Flames and Generosities of the Heart.” See also Paula Bennett, “By a Mouth that Cannot Speak: Spectral Presence in Emily Dickinson’s Letters,” The Emily Dickinson Journal 1 (1992): 76–99
See Andrew Boyle, An Index to the Annuals, vol. I (vol. II never printed) (London: privately printed by Andrew Boyle, 1967)
F. W. Faxon, Literary Annuals and Gift Books: A Bibliography 1823—1903 (1912, reprinted Boston: Pinner, Private Libraries Assoc, 1973)
Anne Renier, Friendship’s Offering. An Essay on the Annuals and Gift Books of the 19th Century (London: Private Libraries Assoc, 1964)
Alison Adburgham, Silver Fork Society. Fashionable Life and Literature from 1814 to 1840 (London: Constable, 1983).
Arthur Henry Hallam, “On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson,” reprinted from the Englishman’s Magazine (August 1931) in The Writings of Arthur Hallam, ed. T. H. Vail Motter (New York and London: Modern Language Assoc, of America, 1943), 182–197.
For discussion of the structure of hypertext (and a critique of rather loose representations of its decentralized form) see Ross Atkinson, “Networks, Hypertext, and Academic Information Services: Some Longer Range Implications,” College & Research Libraries 54, no. 3 (May 1993): 199–215.
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© 2001 Jerome McGann
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McGann, J. (2001). The Rationale of Hypertext. In: Radiant Textuality. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-10738-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-10738-1_3
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