Conclusion
To conclude, I will state that digital aesthetic plays a major role in the creation of meaning which will impact not only the reader but also the reading experience. As Hayles points out, because most people have read literature as a print medium before, they are equipped with a certain level of understanding and expectation of literary forms, which expectations lay the basis for electronic literature. To be successful, digital literature needs to work with those expectations and get the reader to reevaluate his traditional understanding of literature (Hayles). Various other issues have to come to my attention while looking closely at aesthetics of digital literature. Not every genre is equally suited for digital literature, as we have seen in Spätwinterhitze, genres that require narrative coherence are harder to combine with the fast-changing hypermedia. Furthermore, the freedom of publication is an interesting aspect of the Internet. Given the required technological know-how, anyone can produce a literary work and make it instantly available to everybody with access to the Internet. This eliminates the need for a publisher and removes third party interferences that places restrictions on what is made available to the public and what is frowned upon. Lastly, the notion of “electracy” (Ulmer) is very interesting for me as a student of literature. It is argued, that all the new aspects of digital literature require not only writers and readers to adapt, but also literary critics, so they are able to “understand fully the aesthetic strategies and possibilities of electronic literature.” The composition of a text on a computer screen using digital media is not the same as of a text that adheres to normal conventions of print and cannot be interpreted the same way. Electronic literature is an extremely diverse field incorporating a vast array of aesthetic principles and experimentations and will continue to evolve.
