Hypertext avant la lettre

Abstract

The transition from analog to digital media is frequently mischaracterized as a fundamental break from narrative continuity rather than a process of translation. While hypertext is celebrated as a radical cultural departure, its structural logic is deeply rooted in the genealogy of the card index and the relational database. Historically, the use of modular filing systems by figures such as Leibniz, Barthes, and Luhmann enabled a non-linear, recursive management of knowledge that anticipated computer-mediated communication. These analog practices facilitated the same subversion of textual linearity and reliance on contingency currently attributed to digital interfaces. Despite claims of absolute innovation, digital textuality often functions as a “screen memory” that obscures its own precursors, reframing established methods of data processing as modern breakthroughs. Furthermore, digital fiction frequently fails to surpass the experimental poetics of twentieth-century writers like Nabokov or Schmidt, who utilized extensive card systems to construct complex, multi-dimensional montages. The transformative potential of new media is thus found not in an ontological break, but in the evolution of three-dimensional writing and the shift toward database-driven production. By recognizing hypertext as a continuation of long-standing archival and compositional techniques, the perceived anachronism of claiming historical precursors while asserting radical novelty is resolved. – AI-generated abstract.