MLA Convention 2020: Documenting a Graduate Course in Electronic Literature with Scalar

Section VII: "Literary Gaming"

In her book Literary Gaming, Ensslin starts off by offering the reader initial thoughts on what she understands by the notion of “literary gaming”. She does, in fact, approximate this concept to the idea that literary gaming is a form of digital play that manifests when we engage in a playful scenario where we interact with “digital artifacts that combine so-called ludic (from Latin ludus: games or play) and literary (from Latin littera: alphabetic letter, or plural litterae: piece of writing) elements.”(1) Relatedly, Ensslin emphasizes that in her book the lexeme “digital literature” makes reference to literature that is digital-born excluding e-books or any other forms of digital writing that “can be printed without losing their specific aesthetic appeal and distinctive interactive qualities;” (3) In a similar book, she observes that the term digital literature does not include that videogames that cannot be read or played “for their artistic verbal and ludogical forms and contents.” (3)

In Section I, chapter 2, “Playing with Rather Than by Rules”, she devises a revisionist approach towards the notion of play. I contend she devotes time to doing this because, first and foremost, the complete book is built around this notion, but most of all, because she feels that different forms of play trigger off important levels of creativity, innovation, identity awareness and whatnot in the players’ mindset. To begin with, she reminds the reader of the notion of “play” put forward by Kant who “maintained play’s subordinate status to knowledge and truth” (20) and goes on to say that this is an important take on play insofar as it implies that all forms of artistic expression are, in tandem, forms of play. Eventually, she explains how Friedrich Schiller adopted and expanded on this notion by developing an existential concept that focused on the vital importance notion of play for the development of human nature. In this line of thinking, the reader also is introduced to how Nietzsche connected the notion of play to the “Dionysian impulse”, which in other words is nothing but “the purely self-interested will to power that has the capacity to both create and destroy civilizations” (Spariosu 1982, 25). Put more simply, play is functional to the perpetual recurrence of events.

Other philosophers also become central to the notion of play. Martin Heidegger’s concept of human reality as a “game of being” is referred to in this book. This existentialist approach to the definition of play explain how we all human beings engage into the game of being on a daily basis and this clearly has a profound effect on our lives. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s studies concentrate on the intricate relationship between play and language. As a matter of fact, he does compare language to a game of chess and contends that the rules of this game become clear only if “the player has been initiated to their meanings and rules” (21). Gadamer, appealing to the views of Kant and Schiller, highlights that play is of vital importance to art because both “art and games are manifestations of play, and therefore art is less about playful structures than entertainment and spectacle.” (22). Eugen Fink was far more interested in the ontological features of play and attributed the nature of game there major constituting elements: “a metaphysical and ontological, a mythical of religious, and a symbolical or holistic function.” (22) All these aforementioned concepts were synthesized and turned into cultural studies approaches by Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois for whom culture emerges and manifests itself in a form of play. For Huizinga, particularly, “play occurs in two main types: in a natural, primitive, irrational form… and in a cultivated, cultural, rational form.” (23)

I think Ensslin’s need to disclose her theoretical background for talking about literary games demonstrates her level of commitment with an academic terrain that is avid of intellectual contributions and developments. All her historical revisionism in terms of the notion of play attests to this argument and, more importantly, to her intellectual commitment to the field of digital literature.
 

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