From Page to Screen - WRAP: Warwick Research Archive Portal ...

generally, but more specifically of culture, and maybe even literature.
Literary experiments using the computer play an important role in the exploration and the
evaluation of these changes, as William Paulson has pointed out when he writes in his
1989 essay "Computers, Minds and Texts":
Computers are. fast replacing pen andlaper, and could literally replace the book,
though that WIll not happen soon an may not happen at all. For the moment,
however, the concrete change in technology is not the most important aspect of the
so-called computer revolution. What matters most is the conceptual, social and
economic situation created by the computers and the science of information.
[...'T[he book as 'symbol' has been decisively replaced, first perhaps by the machine,
certainly now by the computer."
This cultural shift suggested by Paulson nearly ten years ago has become increasingly
evident since then; the wider context ofcultural change and of the computer as a primary
symbol of not only information but also culture, and the role of and place for (electronic)
literature linked to such changes will be subject of the next and final concluding chapter
ofthe thesis.
OJ William Paulson, "Computers, Minds, and Texts: Preliminary Reflections", New Literary History, vol.zo
nO.2 (Winter 1989), 291-30 4 (P.293)· Chapter 5 - page205