Hypertext and Literary Form

To analyze a hypertext, we need to know what is it made of. In print, the page is a standard unit of measurement. In literary forms, the units vary depending on genre:

• For prose, some basic units are the paragraph and the sentence.
• For poetry, basic units include the stanza and the line (for formal poetry, made up of the syllable and the foot)
• For drama, basic units include the scene and the line of dialogue

In hypertext, the basic units are the link and the screen.

 

OK, but what is hypertext? Let's look at some definitions.