Introduction to "James Joyce's Ulysses in Hypermedia"

Abstract

Introduction to “James Joyce’s Ulysses in Hypermedia” Michael Groden (bio) Computer-based hypertext linked its way into literary studies about a decade ago, causing a certain rethinking and repositioning of such works as Joyce’s Ulysses. (“Hypertext” can be defined, following Ilana Snyder, as “a structure composed of blocks of text connected by electronic links” which “offers different pathways to users.” 1 “Hypermedia” is hypertext involving other media in addition to words: sound, visuals, video, animation, and the like.) In Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, Jay David Bolter describes Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as “hypertexts that have been flattened out to fit on the printed page,” and he names one section of his book “the hypertexts of James Joyce.” 2 George Landow calls such books as Ulysses an “implicit hypertext in nonelectronic form” and argues that “a work conventionally considered complete, such as Ulysses . . . would immediately become ‘incomplete’” in a hypertext structure. 3 Of course, these sweeping statements and descriptions can be countered quite easily, but they also point to some potentially fascinating developments. In the light of hypertext, scholars have highlighted certain aspects of earlier literary works and reorganized past works into new arrangements. Bolter argues that the literary past needs to be “reconsidered in the light of the electronic medium,” 4 and he places such authors as Laurence Sterne, Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, and Milorad Pavic in what he calls “the tradition of experiment.” 5 Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, and Robin Parmar create [End Page 359] a similar canon that they name “the non-linear tradition in English,” 6 and other critics refer to pre-hypertexts, proto-hypertexts, anticipations of hypertext, or Landow’s “implicit” hypertexts. An extreme teleological view even sees these writers as producers of electronic hypertexts in all but medium: “it is as if these authors had been waiting for the computer to free them from print.” 7 A more print-based work than Ulysses is hard to imagine. And yet the terms used to describe hypertext—associative, multi-pathed, nonlinear (or, much better, multilinear)—echo Joyce’s interior monologue techniques in Ulysses, in which details connect across hundreds of pages and readers progress through the masses of information in various ways, ranging from reading the text straight through to jumping around in the book (or simply skipping sections) to moving back and forth between the text and secondary materials. The possibility of seeing Ulysses in relation to its many stages of compositional development—something that hypertext can facilitate 8 —leads Bolter to call the published Ulysses a “flattened” hypertext, and the large amount of accompanying explanatory, critical, and scholarly material—all of which can be presented in the same electronic space as the text of Ulysses—inspire Landow to call Ulysses “incomplete.” “James Joyce’s Ulysses in Hypermedia” grows out of and explores the possible connections between Ulysses and hypertext by presenting Joyce’s book in an electronic hypermedia format. The full text of Ulysses will be included, we hope in several of its printed versions. Specific words and phrases will be linked to definitions and annotations, extended analyses and commentary, photographs, videos, maps, songs, an oral pronunciation guide, and audio readings from works that are quoted or cited in the text. Broader sections of Ulysses will be linked to several translations of The Odyssey and other literary works that lie behind Ulysses, biographical and historical background documents, a complete oral reading of Ulysses, film and video excerpts from the book, and critical and scholarly books and articles—all coordinated whenever possible to the passage of Ulysses on the screen. Users will be able to bookmark their place and leave notes for future use. The presentation takes full advantage of the computer screen’s aesthetic possibilities and allows the simplest possible ways of navigating through the vast amounts of available material so that users ranging from beginners to scholars can find what they want without being burdened by overly advanced or elementary information. The contents of the hypermedia Ulysses fall into thirteen broad categories: 1. The text of Ulysses, ideally in several of its printed versions. 2. Published and newly written definitions, annotations, and commentaries...