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5,2,2:QuestiQn fQr literary studi,.§,
In c?ntra,st to.. our vast knowledge ofhow science and logical reasoning proceeds, we know
precious little In anyformalsense about how to makegoodstories.18 (Jerome Bruner)
While the interest of AI researchers in the study and generatiQn of (prose) narratives is
understandable, the question arises which insights, if any, experiments such as T ALE­
SPIN can offer literary researchers, Many of the areas it examines and analyses it carries
out seem after all to merely repeat, albeit on a more sophisticated level, research into the
structure ofnarratives which have been carried out under similar assumptions in formalist
and structuralist studies ofnarrative.
One motif for the study of computer-generated literature is the hope to obtain further
insight into the nature and structure ofpQetry and prose; Ryan's suggestions, for example,
are based on the strong mechanistic beliefthat the element of"tellability" ofany narrative
is qualifiable and quantifiable and that
the creation of {literary} meaning is not a mysterious brainstorm caused by a random
meeting of circumstances - a unique individual in an ephemeral state of mind,
nurtured to some immeasurable extent by a culture whose boundaries remain fuzzy,
and bringing to the text a deeply private experience ofthe world - but the predictable
output ofdefinable prQcesses operating on a variable input.v
Millc exhibits a less optimistic attitude to the ability of the computer to imitate creative
acts of humans and believes that through work on prQse generators and their outputs one
can not only learn about literary structures (Ryan's argument) but more impQrtantl:g
through the observation of the shortcomings of those generators, obtain a greater
appreciation Qf the work of authors. He argues that his work on Erato, a poetry prQgram
he created, "doesn't weaken our appreciation for poets. On the contrary, it deepens it
because we see hQW much easier they do what the prQgrammer and machine are trying to
dQ,"ZO
Far from being a supporter of a romantic vision of the creative genius (he does believe
that the computer could eventually achieve the sophistication ofa human creator) he does
acknowledge that factors which are very difficult to compute do playa role in the writing
process, some of which he hopes tQ discover and pinpoint further through his work on
18Jerome Bruner, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UP, 1986), P·14, .
'9 Ryan, Possible Worlds, P.5-6, Which, in consequence, turns literary studies into an a-historical and highly
formalist discipline,
10 McKean, "Computers, Fiction and Poetry", P,51 •
Chapter 5 - page 184