Navigating the battlefield, navigating text: Motion along a battlefield in the prose of Richard Weiner as a metaphor for hypertext reading strategy
Abstract
This article examines the way in which Richard Weiner's prose works "Kostajnik" (1916) and "Ztřeštěné ticho" (Foolhardy Silence, 1916) describe the motion of soldiers on a battlefield. It reveals two planes of description for this event: the first one, the "bodily sense", corresponds with simple understanding, and it is able to lead the body without the participation of the mind; the second is the plane of the internal stream of consciousness, to which the subject's own thoughts are devoted, and which is seemingly unconnected to the war experience outside the subject.
We show that the plane of the bodily sense is equivalent in Weiner's eyes to fatefulness and is typified by losses of one's original point of orientation, shifts of the horizon, and selections of new working goals. We recognize a similar strategy in a reader's typical movement through an internet hypertext.
We consider the two strategies as similar because they are both manifestations of the way in which a person comes to terms with an unknown environment when they must progress through it dynamically.