Reception

The comment that was made in class that electronic-literature hinges on the reader’s response to the piece as opposed to the author infusing meaning into the words resonated with me the most because that process of engaging with the text differs from how I have interacted with texts in prior classes. The tension apparent in the various manifestations of Jorge Borges’s “Library of Babel” between mechanical production and individuality seemed to illuminate the reader-response comment. The various permutations of text that are produced from the library are so abstract, that they are at once both disheartening and empowering. Disheartening, because the concept that every combination of words that ever has been or could be said seems to imply that creativity is finite, infusing the generated ‘text,’ and other creations, with meaninglessness. However, in attempting to have the computer dictate text to the class, and then having students read versions of Queneau’s sonnets, the professor pointed out the very high likelihood that the combination we read aloud in class was perhaps the first time that particular combination has ever been read out loud. A sense of individuality, and almost ownership, can then be derived by interacting with a text through reading aloud.