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Electronic literature is expanding worldwide and reveals innovative circumstances in
contemporary literary production. The major genres of the canon - associated with
print literature - have been transferred in a purely digital environment, and in the
same time new genres are emerging (Hayles 2008: 5). While in English literary
production we find plenty of digital texts, contemporary Greek literature has to
show only a few examples. As a result, this proposal focuses on the categorization
of prose literary electronic genres that have been produced in modern Greek
electronic literature, the presentation of a characteristic sample of each one and
their exemplary interpretation through the following axes: the interrelation of
author and reader, the narrative techniques and the multimodality of the text We are interested mainly in short prose textual genres,
given that they are more flourishing than poetry in a purely digital
environment in Greece.
On Greek literary production the majority of texts are digitized and no born-digital. Generally, Greek e-literature has an hybrid form because it is based a lot on the digitalization of literature also published in traditional print format and on works produced exclusively digitally, that employ the potentials of programmed media (Koskimaa).
On the first category of digitized text, we can present one of the first complete
versions of digitized and published novel, Giannis Farsari’s https://www.openbook.gr/johnnie-society/.
Johnnie Society (2009)Kratise me (2006), which also inspired a
movie, but now it exists only in print format.
In the second category of digitally born genres, we classify short stories, the most
represented digital literary genre among others in Greece during the last years
given the easy access of creators in blogs or in online literary competitions (some
relevant websites are: Literature.gr, Open Library, Frear etc.). The digital
production of short stories has been especially developed in the blog “Bonsai
Stories”, a part of Planodion magazine https://bonsaistoriesflashfiction.wordpress.com/. https://www.facebook.com/paganritualsinThessaly/. , horror short stories lined with the folklore mantle of local
traditions, started online on the author's Facebook profile (2014) and continue
until today.
Among others digital genres, only the novel https://www.snikolaidou.gr/. Planet Prespa
(2002)Planodion magazine
and on Facebook, which reveal the main targets of our survey, and the hypertext
Planet Prespa.
The intermediation of digital literature, due to the transition
of literary texts from page to screen, multiply the possibilities of the text
according to the principles of the medium (Hayles 2008: 40-45). The analysis of
digital prose texts, will be based on narrative techniques, given their chronotopic complexity. The space of the digital text is the
flickering screen of the electronic device, the cyberspace but also the locus in
which the plot of the text we are reading is placed. The time is influenced by the
chronic placement of the text but also by the stay of each reader on the relevant
webpage (Δημητρούλια- Τικτοπούλου 2015: 88). So, the plot of the digital work, with
narrative entanglements and chronotopic shifts, loses the
linearity of the narrative and unfolds through branching narrative paths,
digitally generated through hyperlinks (especially in hypertext).
Another interpretation key of our survey is the multimodal character of digital prose texts. The structure of the digital literary text, on the basis of visual - mainly - but also audio data, forms a “
multimodal landscape” (Page). Mainly visual material that accompanies the digital texts consists of either graphics or image/paintings (Hayles 2007), which represent the content of the work in an explanatory way, or reinterpret the text, which becomes a work destined not only to be read but also to be seen ("texte à voir") (Bootz 2006).
So, digital (short) texts are characterized by a double visual
materiality, since they are represented on the computer or mobile screen and they also combine the text with the image, visualizing their content (Hayles 2005:118).
All the above narrative and multimodal characteristics are combined on hypertexts, such as
Planet Prespa. The reader
by entering hypertext’s world, similar to a palimpsest, becomes an aspiring “player” (Aarseth 1997: 4), because he is called to choose the hyperlink from which he will begin reading the non-linear narrative and to interact with the
multiple layers that compose it (Pressman 2014: 118-119). Each page of the hypertext forms a landscape, characterized by the layering of textual, visual and audio material (Hayles 2005: 54), the conjunction of which constitutes a special interface which determines the reception of the work by the reader (Manovich 2001: 83-86).
As far as the reader is concerned, the third axe of our analysis, his ability to
explore and discover the digital text, turns him into a potential creator, while he
interacts with the author and the text (Clément 1998: 2). The hypertext, as
mentioned above, offers a huge degree of interactivity, because the reader can
choose at any time how the story will be told (Hayles 2007), realizing the ergodic character of electronic literature (Aarseth 1997: 1-4).
Also, in other types of electronic literary production, such as collective writing
of Rikaki’s Kratise me, the reader actually becomes a
creator, as he completes the plot in his own way.
Consequently, via this proposal we will categorize digitized and digitally born prose literary genres and present their main characteristic, revealing a field on Greek literary production, that remains unexplored yet.