From 2457b3dcbf1a5fcd48a73320d6b12fbd549f27c4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Case Duckworth Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 12:22:54 -0700 Subject: Add genesis section to README --- README.html | 11 +++++++++-- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) (limited to 'README.html') diff --git a/README.html b/README.html index 3aeff9f..e04dddd 100644 --- a/README.html +++ b/README.html @@ -47,8 +47,15 @@

Introduction

-

Autocento of the breakfast table is a hypertextual exploration of the workings of revision across time. Somebody[citation needed] once said that every relationship we have is part of the same relationship; the same is true of authorship. As we write, as we continue writing across our lives, patterns thread themselves through our work: images, certain phrases, preoccupations. This project attempts to make those threads more apparent, using the technology of hypertext.

-

I’m also an MFA candidate at [Northern Arizona University][NAU]. This is my thesis.

+

Autocento of the breakfast table is a hypertextual exploration of the workings of revision across time. Somebody[citation needed] once said that every relationship we have is part of the same relationship; the same is true of authorship. As we write, as we continue writing across our lives, patterns thread themselves through our work: images, certain phrases, preoccupations. This project attempts to make those threads more apparent, using the technology of hypertext.

+

I’m also an MFA candidate at Northern Arizona University. This is my thesis.

+
+
+

Genesis

+

This project revolves around two sister concepts: the hapax legomenon and the cento.

+

Hapax legomenon (ἅπαξ λεγόμενον) is Greek for “something said only once.” It’s used in linguistics to describe words that appear only once in a corpus. If expanded to n-grams, it can be used to describe utterances that occur only once, and this is where it gets interesting. If this line of thinking is taken to its logical conclusion, we can say that all writing, all utterances, are hapax legomena, because they appear only once in the world as they are. In short, everything is individual; everything is differentiated; everything is an island.

+

On the other hand, a cento, from the Latin, from the Greek κέντρόνη, meaning “patchwork garment,” is a poem composed completely of fragments of other poems. It’s a mash-up that makes up for its lack of originality in utterance with a novelty in arrangement. Usually, it refers to taking phrases, lines, or stanzas from other authors’ works, but I don’t see why it couldn’t refer to n-grams or individual words. If this line of thinking is taken to its logical conclusion, we can say that no writing is truly original; that every utterance has, in some scrambled way at least, been uttered before. In other words, nothing is individual. We float on an ocean of language which we did nothing to create, and the best we can hope for is to find some combination that hasn’t been thought of too many times before. As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

+

Autocento of the breakfast table works within the tension caused by these two concepts.

Process

-- cgit 1.4.1-21-gabe81