Just a Little Taste: My Paper-in-a-Post

What is the Primary Text?

The digital age opened up the interpretation of literature that has made obsolete our original definition of what makes up a primary text.

            Hugo made the claim that “The one will kill the other.”  That is to say, one medium, in this case the printing press and literature, will kill its predecessor, architecture.  Relate the cathedral of Notre Dame, if you will, to our impression of a primary text.  The cathedral was a symbol for Hugo of adapting mediums from architecture to literature.  That idea is paralleled today by the emergence of the digital age.  Hugo said one would “kill” the other, but that is not the case today.  It is merely the pedestal upon which one medium is universally more preferable than another that has been killed. 

            I have looked at eBooks, graphic novels, audiobooks, children’s, translations, apps, amateur video adaptations, remixes, parodies, derivative stage/musical works, derivative photography/visual arts, kitsch/material culture, commentary, etc., and am convinced that not only do these different mediums give us a different perspective on the original work, they often influence and color our impression either before, during, or after we read the original textual work.  We have several different layers of influence and interpretation available to us now because of the digital age.

            A couple examples of social proof:  Gideon Burton was vastly helpful in taking my original idea, a critique of the influence of different mediums of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and transforming them into an argument that we have come to an age of multiple primary texts.  He said, “In the digital age, we have phenomenon of genres or categories that literature and its various forms [that] get put into (curated lists, discussion forums, etc.) interpretive communities not available before.”

            Christophe Vacher said the animators hadn’t even read the book.  He said they just knew the story from having lived in Paris.  Their interpretation to create an adaptation of the book, never even originated from the book.

            Jess, the founder of The Hunchblog, found the book through the musical.  That medium colored her perception of the book when she read it.

            The digital age has created a world where the idea of the textual work as the primary medium for interpretation is obsolete.  We live in an age of multiple primary texts.  You cannot read in isolation.            The interpretive community has opened up to include a much more varied and vast audience.

            We must examine our perception of the primary text.  The literary canon has opened itself to other medium sources, or there is a medium/format canon being created, a hierarchy is already underway.  So, in the classroom, I think we should start incorporating multimodal adaptations of the works of literature studied, not in a way that would overwhelm, but in a way to get a taste of how that work of literature is being perceived by those not studying it in class.  

The Tree and the Planets of the Digital Age

I've been playing around with several ideas in regards to creating a visual element for my topic (what is the primary text?)  With the help of my cohort (Emily and Whitney) and my professor, I have heard a couple that I rather like.
ONE:  The Tree
Think of a tree, and the base of the tree as long as the printing press had been around, was the "primary text" in its traditional sense-->the original textual piece of literature.  Everything else stemmed from that core, that center.

With the emergence of the digital age, that base has been changed.  Well, let's say moved.  Literature has moved up and out and has become an appendage (a branch).  What is at the core you ask?  What is holding this tree together?  An idea, a truth, a piece of beauty and humanity that Hugo said was encompassed, during the Middle Ages, in architecture (see my previous post).  That architecture became an appendage when literature kicked it out of its place, and now literature is moving out of the center, too.  It resides as a branch, along with architecture, art, and all these other mediums (audiobooks, blogs, movies, drama, opera, musicals, comic books, foreign translations, you name it).  These are all branches that link back to this embodiment of humanity at the core.  The more the art work represents this idea of humanity, the closer it is to the trunk, but no one medium exemplifies and embodies all these truths any longer.

TWO:  Dynamic Solar System (contribution of Dr. Burton)
Ok, with that vision in mind, let us "boldly go" out to space next.
We have the solar system, with the sun in the middle and all the planets rotating around this center of gravity, all on the same plane.  The sun representing literature (as it once was), and the planets representing all the other mediums aforementioned).

I propose that the digital age has taken that center of gravity and has made it moveable.  Sure, at one point, everything revolves around literature, but depending on your purpose and aim, that center of gravity to change to film, and everything revolves around that medium, or music, or drama.  Different "planets" get their turn in the spotlight.  The orbital system becomes dynamic.  All these modes become a primary text in their turn.

I'm trying to come up with a way to actually make these ideas into an animation, but I will need the assistance of someone much more technologically savvy than myself.
Tell me what you think!

You Can't Read In Isolation

In the digital age, you cannot read a book in isolation.
What does that mean?


Think to that last time you read a book without any prior knowledge of it, thinking you had stumbled across something extraordinary that only you knew about.  Now remember that Google search you did of said book and realized that there were already a million and a half people talking about it.  In fact there were several movies adaptations (which then led you to a Youtube search), blogs, and reviews on it.

Or you saw a movie, or watched a play, or listened to a soundtrack and later realized it was a book, so you picked it up in order to see how the [insert digital medium] compared with the "real" story.

There seem to be two options nowadays:  either you picked up that book you thought no one knew about and realized your ignorance as you climb on the bandwagon, or you picked up that book because of some other medium through which you had experienced the novel.

The digital world is changing the way we go about experiencing literature.  There is hardly a classic work out there that has not been made into a movie, a play, inspired music, written about in some form or another, the list goes on.  Every work of literature we experience has been influenced by this changing digital culture.  You don't have to rely on only the text anymore.

In my own research of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I realized I hadn't even experienced the work of literature in its primary text.  I read an English translation.  The work was already a secondary source when I picked it up.  Now I have seen secondary and tertiary sources regarding this work of literature to an extent that I could not have predicted.  I have listened to the audiobook, toyed with blogs, seen it performed on stage in dance, drama, and musical adaptations.  All these versions have influenced the way I see and read the novel.  I am not relying on the words, but am drawing conclusions about the words through imagery and audio.

All these mediums have added to the way one experiences The Hunchback.  The digital world is expanding and enhancing the literary world.  Should we resist it because it is not the book or should we embrace it because it is a different way of experiencing the book?