The document discusses whether machine-generated text can be considered poetry. It explores how machines use randomness and ambiguity to generate text but are limited in their ability to resonate with human emotions. While machines can create novel word combinations, they struggle to balance familiarity and novelty in a way that engages readers. The author also examines a poet who modified machine output to make it more poetic, pointing out the difficulties of programming machines to mimic human language use. In the end, the document argues that while machine text shows poetic qualities, unedited machine output still requires human intervention to be considered poetry.
Teaching Electronic Literature Using Electronic LiteratureScott Rettberg
This document provides an overview of Scott Rettberg's talk on teaching electronic literature. It begins by introducing Rettberg and the topic of the talk. The talk aims to provide an overview of Rettberg's new book on electronic literature, share his experiences teaching it, and offer ideas for how it can be taught in different contexts like literary studies, creative writing, and digital humanities. It then discusses barriers to teaching electronic literature and strategies to incorporate it as both literature and creative writing. Specific genres and assignments are discussed as examples.
This document summarizes Edgar Allan Poe's process for writing his famous poem "The Raven." It discusses how Poe first considered the length, tone, and refrain/repetition element. He chose a melancholy tone and the word "Nevermore" as the repetitive refrain. He then developed the plot of a lover lamenting the death of his beloved Lenore, with a raven answering "Nevermore" to the man's questions. Poe explains how he crafted each stanza to vary the questions and emotional impact, building to the climax question about being reunited with Lenore in the afterlife. The document provides insight into Poe's meticulous and mathematical approach to composition.
This document summarizes key points from an English literature class. It discusses Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea and how it engages in intertextuality by rewriting Jane Eyre from Bertha Mason's perspective. The professor emphasizes that readers can interpret texts differently and rewrite traditions to explore new possibilities and perspectives not authorized by the original authors. Readers are encouraged to make works more "writerly" by actively participating in constructing meaning rather than passive reception of authorial intent.
This document provides an overview of the evolution of literary narratives from orality to print to digital literature. It discusses how digital literature, as the "Third Age" of narratives, combines characteristics of oral and print cultures. Interactive novels are examined as a genre that builds on oral and print traditions in terms of narration, interactivity, and politics of authorship. The document also explores how digital literature modifies concepts of authorship and readership by allowing more participation and blurring the lines between author and reader.
This book review summarizes Italo Calvino's collection of essays on "the literature machine." Calvino explores the combinatorial possibilities of narrative structures and compares literature to an endless game of chess. He refers to this mechanism as "ars combinatoria." Calvino sees literature as situated between its historical conditions and linguistic conditions. The essays also examine problems of literary ontology, genres, levels of literary reality, and the relationship between literature, language, philosophy, and politics. The review concludes that Calvino's interpretations of classic authors provide valuable insights for history of structuralism by applying structural approaches to pre-structuralist texts.
This document discusses the concept of organic form in Romantic poetry. The key points are:
1) Romantic poets believed that the language of a poem should evolve naturally from its content, rather than being imposed from outside. Each feeling was thought to have its own natural form of expression.
2) Coleridge explained this as an "organic" relationship where the content and form grow together like a living organism. He cited Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" as exemplifying this organic unity.
3) Keats struggled early in his career to achieve organic form, borrowing styles from other poets. His later odes were praised for their successful embodiment of thought and language evolving together spontaneously.
Abstract: Death of the Author “birth of the reader”. Birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of Author.
Keywords: Literary Concept, Expressing the Original Intention of the Author.
Title: The Death of the Author (By Roland Barthes)
Author: ANU ARORA
ISSN 2349-7831
International Journal of Recent Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRRSSH)
Paper Publications
Rahul Mehrotra is an architect and professor based in both Boston and Mumbai. He discusses several influential books in his career, including The Language of Post-Modern Architecture by Charles Jencks, which introduced him to considering multiple architectural vocabularies coexisting. Mehrotra emphasizes the importance of words alongside drawings in architecture. He has written several books on Mumbai architecture and its conservation and advocacy.
Teaching Electronic Literature Using Electronic LiteratureScott Rettberg
This document provides an overview of Scott Rettberg's talk on teaching electronic literature. It begins by introducing Rettberg and the topic of the talk. The talk aims to provide an overview of Rettberg's new book on electronic literature, share his experiences teaching it, and offer ideas for how it can be taught in different contexts like literary studies, creative writing, and digital humanities. It then discusses barriers to teaching electronic literature and strategies to incorporate it as both literature and creative writing. Specific genres and assignments are discussed as examples.
This document summarizes Edgar Allan Poe's process for writing his famous poem "The Raven." It discusses how Poe first considered the length, tone, and refrain/repetition element. He chose a melancholy tone and the word "Nevermore" as the repetitive refrain. He then developed the plot of a lover lamenting the death of his beloved Lenore, with a raven answering "Nevermore" to the man's questions. Poe explains how he crafted each stanza to vary the questions and emotional impact, building to the climax question about being reunited with Lenore in the afterlife. The document provides insight into Poe's meticulous and mathematical approach to composition.
This document summarizes key points from an English literature class. It discusses Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea and how it engages in intertextuality by rewriting Jane Eyre from Bertha Mason's perspective. The professor emphasizes that readers can interpret texts differently and rewrite traditions to explore new possibilities and perspectives not authorized by the original authors. Readers are encouraged to make works more "writerly" by actively participating in constructing meaning rather than passive reception of authorial intent.
This document provides an overview of the evolution of literary narratives from orality to print to digital literature. It discusses how digital literature, as the "Third Age" of narratives, combines characteristics of oral and print cultures. Interactive novels are examined as a genre that builds on oral and print traditions in terms of narration, interactivity, and politics of authorship. The document also explores how digital literature modifies concepts of authorship and readership by allowing more participation and blurring the lines between author and reader.
This book review summarizes Italo Calvino's collection of essays on "the literature machine." Calvino explores the combinatorial possibilities of narrative structures and compares literature to an endless game of chess. He refers to this mechanism as "ars combinatoria." Calvino sees literature as situated between its historical conditions and linguistic conditions. The essays also examine problems of literary ontology, genres, levels of literary reality, and the relationship between literature, language, philosophy, and politics. The review concludes that Calvino's interpretations of classic authors provide valuable insights for history of structuralism by applying structural approaches to pre-structuralist texts.
This document discusses the concept of organic form in Romantic poetry. The key points are:
1) Romantic poets believed that the language of a poem should evolve naturally from its content, rather than being imposed from outside. Each feeling was thought to have its own natural form of expression.
2) Coleridge explained this as an "organic" relationship where the content and form grow together like a living organism. He cited Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" as exemplifying this organic unity.
3) Keats struggled early in his career to achieve organic form, borrowing styles from other poets. His later odes were praised for their successful embodiment of thought and language evolving together spontaneously.
Abstract: Death of the Author “birth of the reader”. Birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of Author.
Keywords: Literary Concept, Expressing the Original Intention of the Author.
Title: The Death of the Author (By Roland Barthes)
Author: ANU ARORA
ISSN 2349-7831
International Journal of Recent Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRRSSH)
Paper Publications
Rahul Mehrotra is an architect and professor based in both Boston and Mumbai. He discusses several influential books in his career, including The Language of Post-Modern Architecture by Charles Jencks, which introduced him to considering multiple architectural vocabularies coexisting. Mehrotra emphasizes the importance of words alongside drawings in architecture. He has written several books on Mumbai architecture and its conservation and advocacy.
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science is an International Journal edited by International Organization of Scientific Research (IOSR).The Journal provides a common forum where all aspects of humanities and social sciences are presented. IOSR-JHSS publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual framework, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, technical notes etc.
The document is a transcript of a talk given by an author to librarians about what writers want from libraries. Some key points:
1) The author discusses how physical libraries helped with research for their books by finding unexpected sources browsing closed stacks.
2) They argue physical books are still important for absorbing notes and ideas during the writing process in a way digital formats cannot replicate.
3) The author urges librarians not to move to a fully digital/closed stack system and to keep the browsing experience of physical books available.
The letter is from Annie to her best friend Elizabeth, thanking her for her encouragement and support in helping Annie take a writing class. Annie shares that some of the poems in the slides are included to express her appreciation for Elizabeth and remind her of their friendship. The last poem "A Christmas Carol" by Christina Rossetti is analyzed in detail by Annie to share an expression of faith with her Christian friend Elizabeth.
This document discusses an initiative by JSTOR to make nearly 500,000 scholarly works from their digital library freely available to everyone worldwide. Known as the Early Journal Content, this collection includes articles, letters and other writings published in over 200 academic journals from the 17th to early 20th centuries. JSTOR encourages sharing and redistributing this content non-commercially to increase access to important historical scholarly works.
The lecture discusses the history of ideas technologies like books and hypertext. It evaluates how ideas are produced, stored and disseminated through different technologies. The concept of hypertext is explored, examining how it moves beyond printed pages and allows for non-linear writing. Theories of information society are investigated to understand today's networked environment.
This document summarizes and responds to an article by Jerrold Levinson defending his relational theory of art. The author argues that Levinson's theory is mistaken because some objects can be art regardless of the creator's intentions. As a counter-example, the author notes that Franz Kafka instructed for his unpublished works like The Trial to be destroyed, suggesting he did not intend them as art, yet they are still considered great works of art. Levinson responds hypothetically that Kafka may have had prior or later art intentions, but the author argues this does not address the actual counter-example and relies on hypothetical speculation rather than facts about Kafka's intentions. The author concludes that Levinson's theory fails to adequately
Electronic Literature - Honors Project Narrative (Final Draft)Cameron Irby
This document discusses plans to introduce a course on electronic literature at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. It argues that electronic literature should be taught as literature in the English department, as the focus will be analyzing digital works that use language as the primary medium through literary criticism. The document explores what constitutes electronic literature and what works could be included, such as hypertext narratives and adventure games. It aims to prove electronic literature is worthy of literary study by examining works through a literary lens, rather than making assumptions based on the medium. The course will analyze examples of electronic literature without focusing on coding skills.
Bergsporttraining op de dijk 0.2 v1.07 January 2019Rob Geurtsen
Presentatie voor wekelijkse basis conditietraining voor bergsporters en trailrunners die in de regio 020 Amsterdam werken en/of wonen.
Training since for climbers, hill-walkers and trailrunners who work and live in/or around Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
This document is a catalogue from Lo Scarabeo presenting their new Tarot and oracle card releases for 2013. It highlights 13 new Tarot decks being released, including the Tarot Illuminati, Tarot of Black Cats, Fairy Lights Tarot, and Tarot Draconis. It also mentions new oracle card decks, accessories like bags and journals, and wax seals being added to their product line. The catalogue provides images and short descriptions for each new product and invites readers to enjoy browsing their selections for the year.
The document summarizes the process of starting a Trainers' Forum initiative within the organization. It describes how the idea started during a conversation in Croatia and then involved sending emails to gain support from the board. Others were brought into the project and lessons around persistence, involvement, and belief were learned. Examples are given of successful events held in Budapest and Tallinn through preparation, networking, and persistence. The document encourages contributing new ideas to benefit the organization and persisting in projects despite challenges through involvement and belief.
Slides from the Interface Design workshop, held in Rotterdam, February 2013.
The participants were senior and junior IT developers and designers from BEST (Board of European Students of Technology - http://www.best.eu.org), hence the secret language and the very specific examples used (i.e. BEST's intranet - Private Area).
La multiplication des outils de mobilité et des canaux digitaux a fortement accéléré l'évolution du tout off line vers un mixte on/off, voir vers du pur on line. Ces changements ont naturellement impacté le Service Client, transformant progressivement le traditionnel Call center en Web center.
Dans cette nouvelle ère, le Service Client doit s'adapter et (re)prendre toute sa dimension au cœur de la relation entre la marque et ses clients. Son positionnement multicanal en fait une véritable force de frappe au service de la satisfaction client et des ambitions commerciales de la marque.
La transformation du Service Client implique de répondre à plusieurs questions : Quelle vision cible ? Quel périmètre ? Quels rôles entre le on et le off line ? Quelles conséquences sur les compétences, les outils, le pilotage,… ?
Pour faire face à la démultiplication de vos campagnes marketing, découvrez comment optimiser vos cycles de vie sur différents média : e-mail, social, mobile,...
La relation client est depuis longtemps en pleine mutation, il faut pour certains offrir de la réduction à l'ensemble de ses contacts, pour d’autres l’accent est à mettre sur l'affinité avec la marque, pour d’autres enfin il convient plutôt d’adapter la communication aux canaux émergeants tout en respectant les bonnes pratiques.
Deux tendances semblent toutefois animer l'approche relationnelle :
La communication One-to-One avec la recherche de la meilleure offre pour le contact à un moment précis.
La volonté de communiquer sur l'ensemble des canaux qu'ils soient classiques (Email, Mailing, SMS) ou nouveaux (Facebook, Twitter, Push Notification...).
La nouvelle plateforme Adobe Campaign V6.11 permet de coupler l'ensemble des besoins métiers tout en simplifiant la création de campagnes et leur automatisation.
Pour cette nouvelle Matinale Technologique Soft Computing, nous vous proposons deux ateliers autour de la thématique des usages standards d'Adobe Campaign :
Atelier 1 :
Présentation d'un programme de bienvenue automatisé / Personnalisation des communications en fonction du comportement et des canaux de contact.
Atelier 2 :
Le social, une opportunité simple pour développer votre visibilité auprès de vos contacts.
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science is an International Journal edited by International Organization of Scientific Research (IOSR).The Journal provides a common forum where all aspects of humanities and social sciences are presented. IOSR-JHSS publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual framework, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, technical notes etc.
The document is a transcript of a talk given by an author to librarians about what writers want from libraries. Some key points:
1) The author discusses how physical libraries helped with research for their books by finding unexpected sources browsing closed stacks.
2) They argue physical books are still important for absorbing notes and ideas during the writing process in a way digital formats cannot replicate.
3) The author urges librarians not to move to a fully digital/closed stack system and to keep the browsing experience of physical books available.
The letter is from Annie to her best friend Elizabeth, thanking her for her encouragement and support in helping Annie take a writing class. Annie shares that some of the poems in the slides are included to express her appreciation for Elizabeth and remind her of their friendship. The last poem "A Christmas Carol" by Christina Rossetti is analyzed in detail by Annie to share an expression of faith with her Christian friend Elizabeth.
This document discusses an initiative by JSTOR to make nearly 500,000 scholarly works from their digital library freely available to everyone worldwide. Known as the Early Journal Content, this collection includes articles, letters and other writings published in over 200 academic journals from the 17th to early 20th centuries. JSTOR encourages sharing and redistributing this content non-commercially to increase access to important historical scholarly works.
The lecture discusses the history of ideas technologies like books and hypertext. It evaluates how ideas are produced, stored and disseminated through different technologies. The concept of hypertext is explored, examining how it moves beyond printed pages and allows for non-linear writing. Theories of information society are investigated to understand today's networked environment.
This document summarizes and responds to an article by Jerrold Levinson defending his relational theory of art. The author argues that Levinson's theory is mistaken because some objects can be art regardless of the creator's intentions. As a counter-example, the author notes that Franz Kafka instructed for his unpublished works like The Trial to be destroyed, suggesting he did not intend them as art, yet they are still considered great works of art. Levinson responds hypothetically that Kafka may have had prior or later art intentions, but the author argues this does not address the actual counter-example and relies on hypothetical speculation rather than facts about Kafka's intentions. The author concludes that Levinson's theory fails to adequately
Electronic Literature - Honors Project Narrative (Final Draft)Cameron Irby
This document discusses plans to introduce a course on electronic literature at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. It argues that electronic literature should be taught as literature in the English department, as the focus will be analyzing digital works that use language as the primary medium through literary criticism. The document explores what constitutes electronic literature and what works could be included, such as hypertext narratives and adventure games. It aims to prove electronic literature is worthy of literary study by examining works through a literary lens, rather than making assumptions based on the medium. The course will analyze examples of electronic literature without focusing on coding skills.
Bergsporttraining op de dijk 0.2 v1.07 January 2019Rob Geurtsen
Presentatie voor wekelijkse basis conditietraining voor bergsporters en trailrunners die in de regio 020 Amsterdam werken en/of wonen.
Training since for climbers, hill-walkers and trailrunners who work and live in/or around Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
This document is a catalogue from Lo Scarabeo presenting their new Tarot and oracle card releases for 2013. It highlights 13 new Tarot decks being released, including the Tarot Illuminati, Tarot of Black Cats, Fairy Lights Tarot, and Tarot Draconis. It also mentions new oracle card decks, accessories like bags and journals, and wax seals being added to their product line. The catalogue provides images and short descriptions for each new product and invites readers to enjoy browsing their selections for the year.
The document summarizes the process of starting a Trainers' Forum initiative within the organization. It describes how the idea started during a conversation in Croatia and then involved sending emails to gain support from the board. Others were brought into the project and lessons around persistence, involvement, and belief were learned. Examples are given of successful events held in Budapest and Tallinn through preparation, networking, and persistence. The document encourages contributing new ideas to benefit the organization and persisting in projects despite challenges through involvement and belief.
Slides from the Interface Design workshop, held in Rotterdam, February 2013.
The participants were senior and junior IT developers and designers from BEST (Board of European Students of Technology - http://www.best.eu.org), hence the secret language and the very specific examples used (i.e. BEST's intranet - Private Area).
La multiplication des outils de mobilité et des canaux digitaux a fortement accéléré l'évolution du tout off line vers un mixte on/off, voir vers du pur on line. Ces changements ont naturellement impacté le Service Client, transformant progressivement le traditionnel Call center en Web center.
Dans cette nouvelle ère, le Service Client doit s'adapter et (re)prendre toute sa dimension au cœur de la relation entre la marque et ses clients. Son positionnement multicanal en fait une véritable force de frappe au service de la satisfaction client et des ambitions commerciales de la marque.
La transformation du Service Client implique de répondre à plusieurs questions : Quelle vision cible ? Quel périmètre ? Quels rôles entre le on et le off line ? Quelles conséquences sur les compétences, les outils, le pilotage,… ?
Pour faire face à la démultiplication de vos campagnes marketing, découvrez comment optimiser vos cycles de vie sur différents média : e-mail, social, mobile,...
La relation client est depuis longtemps en pleine mutation, il faut pour certains offrir de la réduction à l'ensemble de ses contacts, pour d’autres l’accent est à mettre sur l'affinité avec la marque, pour d’autres enfin il convient plutôt d’adapter la communication aux canaux émergeants tout en respectant les bonnes pratiques.
Deux tendances semblent toutefois animer l'approche relationnelle :
La communication One-to-One avec la recherche de la meilleure offre pour le contact à un moment précis.
La volonté de communiquer sur l'ensemble des canaux qu'ils soient classiques (Email, Mailing, SMS) ou nouveaux (Facebook, Twitter, Push Notification...).
La nouvelle plateforme Adobe Campaign V6.11 permet de coupler l'ensemble des besoins métiers tout en simplifiant la création de campagnes et leur automatisation.
Pour cette nouvelle Matinale Technologique Soft Computing, nous vous proposons deux ateliers autour de la thématique des usages standards d'Adobe Campaign :
Atelier 1 :
Présentation d'un programme de bienvenue automatisé / Personnalisation des communications en fonction du comportement et des canaux de contact.
Atelier 2 :
Le social, une opportunité simple pour développer votre visibilité auprès de vos contacts.
L’Expérience client : quels dispositifs de mesure et quels plans d'action dans l'éco-système complexe des parcours omni-canaux ?
L’Expérience client est devenue un levier de performance et d’innovation incontournable pour fidéliser les clients. Comment un indicateur comme le Net Promoter Score peut-il vous aider sur le plan stratégique et opérationnel à suivre le ressenti de vos clients sur la diversité de leurs parcours, à corriger vos points faibles en temps réel et dans la durée, à prioriser vos actions et à créer une valeur tangible ?
Les dispositifs de mesure de la Satisfaction et de l’Expérience client participent pleinement au pilotage stratégique et opérationnel des entreprises. Le NPS, indicateur reconnu et universel de l’expérience client, peut vous aider à aller beaucoup plus loin s’il est utilisé et interprété à bon escient.
• Comment construire des dispositifs de mesure de l’Expérience client cohérents par rapport aux points de contacts et parcours proposés ?
• Quels enseignements tirer des résultats différents observés entre mesures à chaud et à froid, expérience par canal et expérience globale ?
• Quelles actions prioriser grâce au NPS et comment modéliser le ROI des actions en gains sur le NPS ?
• Quel niveau d’implication et quels leviers pour les équipes opérationnelles ?
Pour répondre à ces interrogations, nous vous invitons à un séminaire gratuit, au cours duquel nous partagerons nos meilleures pratiques au travers de cas concrets ?
Machine Learning et Intelligence ArtificielleSoft Computing
Machine Learning (ML) et Intelligence Artificielle (AI) sont au cœur des stratégies des géants du net : reconnaissance de textes, de visages, de sentiments, analyse de signaux issus notamment d’objets connectés. Comment capitaliser sur ces méthodologies pour des applications Marketing ? Avec quels outils, méthodes et compétences ?
Google, Facebook, Apple et autres Microsoft se livrent une bataille de Titan sur le terrain de l’Intelligence Artificielle. Cette débauche de moyens en recherche et développement génère la diffusion en Open Source de nombreux algorithmes ou le foisonnement de fonctions et d’API de Machine Learning et Deep Learning et d’AI « as a service ». Avec des efforts minimes, tout-un-chacun peut aujourd’hui accéder simplement et pour un coût modique à des fonctionnalités puissantes pour reconnaître un visage, une voix, des sentiments …
En outre, la démocratisation des technologies Big Data donne accès à des puissances de traitement considérables qui permettent d’appliquer ces algorithmes de Machine Learning sur des centaines de milliers de points, des milliards d’enregistrements et des volumes de plusieurs péta-octets.
Le Marketing et la connaissance client capitalisent sur toutes ces nouvelles possibilités : conseiller le bon produit – en mode recommandation ou substitution, anticiper des changements dans les comportements, s’adresser au client de façon complètement personnalisée, surveiller en temps réel des indicateurs de bon ou mauvais fonctionnement – objets connectés, fluidifier et optimiser l’expérience client en identifiant des axes d’amélioration des parcours ou process.
Ce séminaire vise à démystifier le Machine Learning, à en dessiner des applications potentielles pour le Marketing. Les modalités de mise en œuvre – outils, procédures et techniques, forces et faiblesses – seront détaillées à travers la présentation de cas d’usage.
1. Kate Zhiming Zeng
Daniel Nelson
WRT 105
02 May 2014
Is Computer Poetry Poetry? Behind the Machine of Machine-Generated Poetry
Machine-generated poetry is essentially a string of text strung together
through a step-by-step process to resemble poetry. Automated poetry immediately
raises the question of whether such text can be deemed poetry at all. Although
automation can generate poems that fulfill the measurable stylistic demands of a
poetic form, such as the iambic pentameter of a sonnet, it seems impossible that it
can generate text that makes sense, let alone text that moves us. However, the
poetry produced with Charles Hartman’s programs challenges the assumption that
there is nothing poetic about machine-generated poetry. The way he uses the
machine underlines that the extent in which a machine-generated poem sounds
poetic depends largely on how a person collaborates with the machine.
“The object of poetry is confessedly to act upon the emotions,” John Stuart
Mill said. Good poetry evokes an emotional response in its readers. Since a machine
cannot think and feel on its own and thus cannot assess the emotional content of its
work, it is understandable that literary critics would call machine-generated poetry
mere imitations of the original. The main decisions a machine makes in creating
poetry are choosing words and arranging the word order based on a set of random
or arbitrary rules. Such random or arbitrary decisions do not guarantee that the
resulting text will have any emotional impact. A machine can only try out various
2. combinations of these decisions in the hopes that one of the resulting stanzas has
poetic potential. Unsurprisingly, such a process does not guarantee a high
proportion of good stanzas, out of all the stanzas produced. Hartman described how
he had to comb through “piles of computer paper, searching in vain for oracular
truths” even after he has done various fine-tuning to the program to increase the
chances of getting good poetry. In comparison, when a person writes poetry, he or
she has access to his or her personal experiences and is able to ponder on their
nuances in such a way that a set of instructions and data fails to encapsulate. Since
we have yet to program a machine that can perfectly imitate the way we process
information (and it’s arguable if that is even possible) and thus cannot produce a
reasonable proportion of poetry that actually moves us, it seems conclusive to argue
that any machine-generated text is not poetry.
While it would be exceedingly difficult to program the complexity of our
emotions and thoughts, this does not imply that machine-generated text has no
poetic quality. Even though a machine does not have a mind like ours but a limited
set of input and instructions (e.g. word banks and syntax structures), based on those
input alone, it can create thousands of word combinations that we normally do not
use. The meaning of these words is ambiguous - we cannot at first glance discern a
single, clear meaning. Through this form of ambiguity, machine-generated poetry
can act on our emotions and engage us. In Seven Types of Ambiguity, William
Empson described ambiguity as “any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives
room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language.” Ambiguity is seen as
an indispensable quality of good poetry because it leaves a poem open to a rich
3. variety of interpretations. Ambiguity gives poetry what Jane Hirshfield calls, the
“mysterious surplus”. Through the juxtaposition of images and words that are
seemingly unrelated by the standards of everyday language, a poem creates an area
of grayness that is hard to grasp, at least at first glance. The reader is invited to
ruminate on the possible meanings that can be constructed based on not just the
word itself, but also the connection between each word. In other words, the reader
fills in the gaps between disjointed words. This gap, or disjunction, is crucial in good
poetry because it engages the reader to supplement the gaps with their own
experiences, thus transforming the words into a poem that resonates personally. It
keeps the poem fresh as each reader brings a different interpretation to the same
poem.
So how effective are programmable processes at creating ambiguity? When
the program uses a randomness function, it becomes especially effective at finding
uncommon combination of words and images because it makes decisions
unpredictably, uninfluenced by human preferences, will or circumstances. In the
case of Hartman’s program, the program arranges parts of speech (e.g. adjective,
noun) randomly to create a syntax template, before proceeding to fill up the
template with randomly selected words that fit the syntax demanded. Without any
references to how people actually combine words beyond grammatical rules, the
resulting text is largely an incongruous arrangement of words - syntactically correct
yet rarely used in everyday life. If we measure a good poem by its degree of
disjunction alone, we find that an automated process with a randomness function
generates good poetry.
4. The question then is, when does the gap become so large that it loses the
audience? A poem that is too straightforward becomes clichéd stale poetry. A poem
that is too hard to comprehend cannot resonate with readers. The trade-off between
creating enough disjunction and leaving behind enough clues is a balancing act that
poets perform. “In literature,” Robert Frost wrote in a letter to John Bartlett, “it is
our business to give people the thing that will make them say, “Oh yes I know what
you mean.” It is never to tell them something they don’t know, but something they
know and hadn’t thought of saying.” In other words, a good poem involves arranging
words in such a way that is, at once, familiar and unfamiliar to the reader. Coming
up with unusual word combination is not enough to create good poetry. Good
poetry also needs to echo what has been said to resonate with readers. While it is
very simple to design programs to find unfamiliar combinations of words, it is an
extremely hard task to design programs that can find and store all the common
ways people use language, especially when people find new ways of using language.
Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to reduce the balancing act to a set of machine-
executable procedures, getting a machine to generate text that resonates with
people would be like finding a needle in the haystack of infinity.
However, just like how the poet does not require all the knowledge in the
world to create good poetry, a machine does not need to model all the ways people
use words in order to generate good poetry. Ferdinand de Saussure, who viewed
language as a closed or self-contained system, would probably defend the notion
that a machine can generate text that makes sense to people as long as it is
programmed to obey syntax structures. If language is indeed a self-contained
5. system, any text (including machine-generated ones) with an identifiable syntax
structure is enough to be comprehensible in terms of the way we understand
poetry.
A case in point would be Lewis Carroll’s famous poem, “Jabberwocky.”
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Even though we have no prior knowledge of what most of these words mean,
it is not hard to guess what they mean because the underlying grammatical
structure suggests the relationship between those words. “Brillig” is an adjective
that seems to describe the weather. We can tell “toves” is a noun that probably
refers to a pack of animals because of the active verbs “gyre” and “gimble”. Other
kinds of poetry also work similarly by obscuring the reference of the word. In terms
of balancing between the familiar and unfamiliar, it seems that good grammar
already provides enough familiarity to any bizarre arrangement of words. Going
down this road, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to claim that a machine with the ability
to generate syntactically sound sentences can produce poetry.
Yet, the claim that “Jabberwocky” engages us merely because of its syntax is
simplistic. Even though we do not use those words in daily life, they bear semblance
to words we do use in such a way that we can build a context around them. “Brillig”
sounds like “brilliant” and “slithy” sounds like “slithering”. It seems that these words
are deliberately chosen to sound like it might refer to an actual object or concept.
Moreover, the way the words are grouped together also inform their meanings, such
6. as how “toves”, “gyre” and “gimble” create a notion of animals moving. Having
correct syntax alone is not sufficient for readers to find familiarity with the text. The
text also needs to suggest a context. Again, it would be extremely complicated to
reduce all the ways in which we pick and arrange words to express a context into a
set of programmable functions. It seems that machine-generated text could never
become comprehensible enough to resonate with readers.
Hartman ended up modifying not just the program but also its output, many
times, in fact. Hartman admitted that most of the machine’s original output did not
contain the “flashes […] of ordinary or extraordinary lucidity” he had hoped they
contained. Granted, he did find “endless tempting sentences, perhaps one in five or
ten” but most contained so much disjunction that they did not resonate with him. In
the excerpt below, Hartman commented on why he manually modified the output to
make it sound more poetic.
"The court of color (radiation of the center) is stress above any building."
Nonsense, yes, but with the subliminal promise of an image: open air, surrounding
white buildings, uncanny color. Take out "stress," which is abstract in this context.
Notice that "color" makes "radiation" unnecessary (though the connection between
them may have first called my attention to "color"). And "court" (as in "courtyard")
might contain the implications of both "center" and "building" and made those
words unnecessary. So "The court of color is . . ." what? Air, really, or all the air
considered as a whole: "atmosphere." "Atmosphere" might also be the courtroom of
colors, judiciously discriminating near from far (as in aerial perspective), bright
from dim.
But "atmosphere" could never have been produced by the program, not being
in its dictionary. So, came the subversive voice, add it to the dictionary.
The decision to change the output does indicate the limited ability of
programmable processes to generate full-fledged poetry. Hartman could have added
improvements to his program but instead he chose to modify the output directly.
8. Merril used an Ouija board to dictate verses to him: the end result is an award-
winning poem “The Changing Light at Sandover”.
Should we disdain the use of automation in the creation of a poem just
because of its arbitrariness? We are eager to forget how randomness plays a part in
the creative process. When we look at say, the sonnet, it seems arbitrary that each
line should contain five iambs. How does this number help to evoke an emotional
response? Much like how poets have used various poetic forms to write poetry,
Hartman uses the randomness function and the syntax template to find new ways of
combining images. A machine simply applies these templates to a great amount of
input at a speed faster than what a human can do. Could Shakespeare have written
his poems without the sonnet? Could Hartman have imagined his edited poems
without the machine? Even though there is no definitive explanation on how these
templates act on our emotions, they have curiously been found in poems that
resonate with readers. So long as the poet uses the templates, or programmable
processes, in such a way that the final form of the poem hits the sweet spot between
the familiar and the unfamiliar, computer poetry text can indeed be good poetry.
Bibliography
1. Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. New York: MacMillan, 1865.
Print.
2. De Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Illinois: Open Court
Publishing, 1983. Print.
9. 3. Devitt, Michael, and Kim Sterelny. Language and Reality: An Introduction to
the Philosophy of Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: A Bradford Book, 1999. Print.
4. Empson, William. Seven Types of Ambiguity. New York: Meridian Books, 1960.
5. Frost, Robert. The Letters of Robert Frost. Volume 1. Ed. Sheehy, Donald
Gerard; Richardson, Mark; Faggen, Robert. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2014. Print.
6. Hartman, Charles O. Virtual Muse: Experiments in Computer Poetry.
Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1996. Print.
7. Hirshfield, Jane. “Poetry, Transformation, and the Column of Tears.” The
American Poetry Review. 42.6 (Nov/Dec 2013): 37. Web. 17 Apr 2014.
8. McHale, Brian. “Poetry as Prosthesis.” Poetics Today 21.1 (Spring 2000): 1-32.
Web. 17 Apr 2014.
9. Mill, John Stuart. “What is Poetry?” Essays on Poetry. South Carolina:
University of South Carolina Press, 1976. Print.
10. Nemerov, Howard. "Poetry (literature)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 17 Apr 2014.