The importance and implications of hypertext annotation go far beyond providing footnotes or glossary accessibility. One of th early and popular hypertext systems, Xerox's NOTECARDS, was developed as a tool to articulate the interconnections and arguments of complex scholarly works. Its initial formulation was directly influenced by the structures of argumentation developed by Toulmin (Brown,1985). The ultimate value of hypertext annotation systems will be an increased sharability of ideas, even more, an enhancement of the sharability of knowledge and the community of scholarship. Collaborative research, based on shared hypertext databases, is now a major theme of research within the cognition and information sciences communities (Conklin&Begeman1987).
My research in cognitive development now centers on the attempt to make case study a more nearly "scientific" method through
A text may be seen as a serialized description of a more multi- dimensional vision in the author's mind. The linearization of text is both a limitation and source of expressive power through which the text author can represent and shape attitudes towards his/her imaginary world. A printed text may be viewed then as a privleged but reduced presentation of the author's more complete vision. Hypertext is a way of super-adding different new dimensions to serialized text; a reconstitution, of sorts, of some of the multi-dimensionality of the vision behind a text. The author's text, remains a privleged view. If we adopt the terminology of Tolkein (1964, in Tree and Leaf) one would say that analysts and annotators are engaged in subcreation within the virtual world of the primary artist. Though rare, it is possible that the critic's work may be more interesting than that of the original author himself (as Kinbote's footnotes so outshine Shade's poem in Nabokov's 1962 parody, Pale Fire).
King Jesus and The White Goddess
A rare opportunity presents itself in the works of Graves, for his
oeuvre includes the novel King Jesus -- a speculative, naturalistic account of
the intellectual commitments and life of Jesus -- and presents a literary
formulation of themes analyzed extensively in The White Goddess. These are
themes Graves relates to classical literature and mediterranean and European
prehsitory and mythology.
The components of a hypertext scholar's system can be seen as primarily three:
a reference text base, annotations of that text base, and computational tools.
The reference base is the original (flattened) text to be preserved (printed
versions of King Jesus and The White Goddess). The annotation
superstructure is an extensible and sharable commentary on the text, one
linking concrete points of the text to others by typed links (defined at will).
These commentaries can extend and expand the original expression without
obtrusively interfering with the original vision presented by the existing
text. Ancillary tools supplement and help organize the developing commentary.
A most powerful tool can be seen in the NOTECARDS browser, which will compute
on demand a graph by type-of-link of the network of linking references for an
annotated text.
An Elaboration and Analysis
The embodiment of text in information systems is changing the economics
of the publishing business, in a way that will be of use to scholars. Books
are constrained by costs of publication for broad markets. Computer based
hypertext -- though having a much higher entry level costs in terms of computer
facilities, have a much lower incremental cost for text integration. During
the course of this project we will elaborate texts of King Jesus and
The White Goddess, supplementing the latter in three major ways.
First we will augment available text by including relevant reference material
from classical literature (such as citations from the Bible, the
Histories of Herodotus or the epiphany of the Isis from The Golden
Ass of Apuleius) from Celtic mythological literature (such as extended
citations from current translations of the myth of Llew Llaw Gyffes) and from
current scholarship (such as extended parallel cases based on Frazer's study
The Golden Bough).
Second, we will enhance Graves' text by the re-representating of some of his
material in more graphical and diagramatic form -- as exemplified in his
current text where diagrams are used to show the relationship between the
development of the Druidic tree alphabets and finger codes to the structure of
dolmens. This would be especially appropriate because Graves' work is very
heavily committed to text -- almost to the exlcusion of other materials. Tables
contrasting calendars based on months and weeks of different lengths would be a
help. Maps of places and travel routes of prehistoric migrations and graphical
material on specific locations, such as reconstructed diagrams of the island
port of Pharos, would enrich the text enormously. Access to such resources
through direct manipulation of graphical icons will make Graves'
arguments more accessible than when the reader must imaginatively
reconstruct an image from Graves text then reflect on that image and its
implications.
Pictorial enrichment is especially appropriate and important with respect to
one major theme, iconotropic resignification. Graves argues that the
myths of the Greek Olympian religion are derived in a specific way from
predecessors in the matriarchal society which the Achaean Greeks conquered.
His notion is that pictures and images remained unchanged but that the
conquering patriarchal Achaeans made up new stories to explain representations
of rituals appropriate to the matriarchal religion of the Pelasgian
predecessors. Typical pictures of such scenes would be a significant addition
to Graves' text.
Extensive, extensible, but unobtrusive annotation will permit a finely balanced
appreciation of the many arguments of the text. Information newly available
after publication of The White Goddess -- such as that derived from recently
discovered evidence of early Celtic migrations through middle Europe -- can be
appended to Graves' text where relevant to his arguments. The formalization of
arguments (specifying in a regular way their grounds and support) and the
graphical representation of their relations will clarify what components of his
thesis can be accepted, what must be abandoned, and what must remain in
question.
Even though we preserve the existing text as a reference base, it must be clear
that a critical hypertext is a new creation, a reflection of and reflecting on
the reference base. The technology will reduce the complexity and difficulty
of access to references and enhance access to the reference base text. It will
also act as a major aid in evaluation of the base text itself. The
superstructure of links between specific items with the base text will permit
the development of multiple "tours" through the texts focussed on following
different ones of the many thematic threads. The ability to impose a
structured network of access "on top of" the base text will aid any student's
comprehension of the full text through a better aprreciation of how the
thematic threads are interwoven and interdependent. This after-the-fact
re-structuring of the base text will illuminate the structures of its arguments
and permit acceptance of paths of arguments and lines of reasoning while
proscribing others. Finally, the elaboration of the base text will exist as an
example of electronic scholarhip; hopefully it will provide an inspiration to
others to make use of new tools to preserve significant work from the past as
we strive to understand our intellectual history and use it as our
circumstances and purposes change. If we imagine that the change from a
print-based culture to one in which electronic media is playing a much more
significant role, one which will change the very meaning of scholarship and our
own relationship to cultures of the past, this project can be seen as an
attempt to preserve the best work of one of the last modern scholars of the print age, a man with the sensibilities of a poet, steeped in classical
education. We will use our new technology to grasp and preserve as rich as
possible an appreciation of his mind and view before the prior dispensation
slips entirely from our grasp under the pervasive influence of the electronic revolution.
The activities we will undertake are:
One does not begin such a project as this lightly, nor within a framework where
publication in the short run makes any difference whatsoever. In discussing
Milton's comment that for Paradise Lost, he sought 'a fit audience, though
few', Auden noted Milton's conception of the proper relationship between a
person and work of art ought to be something at least as serious as a long term
love affair. I have been a student of Graves' works for nearly ten years and
continue to find his mind a fascinating one. My interest in his work is
literary and has nothing to do with religious commitments. The sort of work I
propose here is best done on a continuing, steady basis rather than with a
short burst of effort and enthusiasm, such as might be expected over an
academic holiday or sabbatical. If I am able to work on this project part time
for a number of years, I will be illumninating for others, as well as myself,
some important but little studied anthropological and literary works. If the
attempt to transport to an electronic medium this stunning intellectual tour de
force provides an example of the possibilities of scholarship in the electronic
age, it will surely justify the expense of my time and some other resources
besides. A rough estimate of the effort for the project is twenty percent of
my time for three years.
References Publication notes:
These analyses will be embodied both by linking items in the base text to one
another and by creating annotation texts invokable from the base texts. The
structure of Graves' arguments will articulated graphically, with links from
the graphical arguments to specific portions of the base text which present or
support the points.
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