Why Hypertext Criticism?

Richard E. Higgason
Blue River Community College, Blue Springs, Missouri, USA
Email: rich.higgason@kcmetro.edu Web site: http://www.kcmetro.edu/blueriver/humanities/english/higgason
Key features: References; Author Details

All the nodes in this issue:

Editorial
Bibliography of Hypertext Criticism

Mez Breeze

Julianne Chatelain Richard E. Higgason Deena Larsen Bill Marsh Adrian Miles Jenny Weight

Greco (2002) recorded four "easy" steps to hypertext criticism:

  1. Bash George Landow
  2. Bash Eastgate
  3. Promote your own work and that of your friends
  4. Approvingly cite as many famous people as you can, so your name is forever associated with theirs.
Granted, Greco later recorded that she was "pissed off" when she wrote these rules. Upset or not, we have to ask if this is not what hypertext criticism (if not literary criticism in general) has come to: bash others while shamelessly promoting self. This isn't, however, the first time that criticism has been disparaged. In the early nineteenth century, it was not uncommon to view criticism as a "parasite" to art, something that drained "away its lifeblood" (Davis and Schleifer 1993 p. 20). Arnold (1865) records Wordsworth as having held "'the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the inventive [. . .] if the quantity of time consumed in writing critiques on the works of others were given to original composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better employed; [. . .] it would do infinitely less mischief". When readers feel the freedom to speak their minds, criticism has the power to upset others. In fact, it is almost inevitable that criticism will upset at least someone. There will be at least one other person who feels that the critic missed the mark or that he or she was too harsh or too complimentary. Umberto Eco's early work focused on the role of the reader (see, for example, Eco 1984). After publishing his own work of fiction (The Name of the Rose) and seeing the criticism that emerged, he focused more on the limits of interpretation (see, for example, Eco 1992). Is it possible that, when looking at what is actually produced, criticism tends to do more harm than good? Is criticism simply parasitic and thus more capable of "mischief" rather than aiding a work?

At a time when we are questioning the lack of critical attention given to hypertext works, we have to ask if we really want more. Are we better off without it? What is to be gained with hypertext criticism?

References

Arnold, M. (1865) "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time". University of Toronto Libraries, 1996
http://ww.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/criticism/funct_il.html

Davis, R. C. and Schleifer, R. (1994) "What is Criticism". In Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies, 3rd edition (New York: Longman), pp.17-26

Eco, U. (1992) Interpretation and Overinterpretation, edited by Collini, S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Eco, U. (1984) Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press)

Greco, D. (2002) "Hypertext criticism in four easy steps". Talk is Cheap. Say it with Meatloaf, 23 April
http://home.earthlink.net/~dianegreco/west.html