The definition of computer hypertext given in George Landow's 1992 Hypertext (a work that took the category of literature under consideration as its eponym) was drawn from Roland Barthes's S/Z.
Landow describes the form as "text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path." Landow also indicates here, by his use of the term "computer hypertext," that non-computer hypertext - besides the hypertexts he describes as implicit, such as Ulysses - exists as well; Cortázar's Hopscotch and Queneau's Story as You Like It are in this category.
Oddly, the idea that hypertexts can appear in print has been a contentious point for some critics, many of whom either see the electronic digital computer as an essential element in defining a category of interactive texts or consider all texts (which one can, after all, skip around in) as hypertexts. Aarseth deftly disposes of this issue by simply making his definition independent of the medium in which the work is presented.
See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts
Enter Hypertextual as a member
