(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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BERND WITTE
forms of reading comprehension that invite one to respond to what has
already been written no longer appear possible.
Texts written in longhand as well as texts published in books represent
a reduction of the multiple possibilities of combinations that words
formed from the letters of the alphabet can ultimately configure. In order
to set up something sensible, the letters have to be arranged in linear
progression and then decoded according to the same sequence. A similar
principle involving methods of progressive coding and decoding is valid
for reading words within sentences as well as sentences within texts. The
reader is required to follow the directions allocated by the lines in written
or published texts. He follows these with his eyes and thoughts as he
retraces the steps taken by the author. This one-dimensionality, which can
be moderated in traditional texts by applying rhetorical devices, such as
associations, rhyme schemes, and other formal variations, is completely
abandoned in the most advanced materializations of the art of the book at
the outset of modernity. Benjamin cites Stéphane Mallarmés Coup de dés
as a prime example: “Mallarmé, wie er mitten in der kristallinischen Konstruktion
seines gewiß traditionalistischen Schrifttums das Wahrbild des
Kommenden sah, hat zum ersten Mal im ‘Coup de dés’ die graphischen
Spannungen der Reklame ins Schriftbild verarbeitet” (GS IV.1:102; “Mallarmé,
who in the crystalline structure of his manifestly traditionalist writing
saw the true image of what was to come, was in the Coup de dés the
first to incorporate the graphic tensions of advertisement in the printed
page,” SW 1:456).
What is he referring to here? In his final volume of lyrics the French
symbolist author dissolves the linearity of the lines in favor of a graphical
layout, which Benjamin characterizes: “Scheinbar regellos, in sehr
beträchtlichen Abständen, sind Worte in wechselnden Schrifttypen über
die Blätter verteilt” (GS IV.1:480; Seemingly without rules, generously
spaced out, words are distributed in different types on the pages of the
book. 2 ) Because of the graphic design a space occurs around each word,
giving the reader new and curious possibilities for word combinations that
a continuous text could not elicit. Linear in form since their inception, the
written texts in Mallarmé’s book are now revealed to be two-dimensional
textual pictures. The possibilities provided by an ars combinatoria of this
type have, of course, grown exponentially since the advent of computer
languages. By cutting, pasting, augmenting, and reducing texts or transforming
written words into graphic images, words can now be combined
freely on the surface of the monitor.
The transformation of linear script goes even further when several
texts are linked together to form a hypertext. Thus they are unfolded
within a three-dimensional space, which, though not discernable to sensory
perception, allows specific words to be brought into correlation with
each other in a multitude of combinations. Benjamin had foreseen the