Index

The Book

A Bit of Barthes

Modernism

Postmodernism

Decentred

Author Options

Hypertechniques

Bibliography

Vannevar Bush's idea of an easily accessible vast store of knowledge which he called the Memex developed into what is called the internet, the world wide web where information is freely available to anyone with a computer and a phone line.  Perhaps not in his mind was the opportunities this would offer for literary expression.  The potential for a whole new style, structure and method to writing has been born, no longer bound by linearity is at our fingertips.  Ordinary writing is sequential for two reasons.  First, it grew out of speech and speech-making, which have to be sequential; and second, because books are not convenient to read except in a sequence.  But the structure of ideas are not sequential.  They tie together every which-way and when we write, we are always trying to tie things together in non-sequential ways.  The footnote is a break from sequence; but it cannot readily be extended.  This site hopes to offer the entire world a brief introduction to hypertext, an insight into some relevant literary theory on the concepts of author and intention, tracing concepts of what writing should be, including the original design, the modernist reaction and the postmodern ideologies that I feel are most relevant to hypertext.