"Container and Thing Contained"
I've borrowed this title from Kenneth Burke. The container and thing contained refer to Burke's notion of ratios. For this work, ratios help explain the complex relationship among all the elements I wish to discuss (reader, author, text, argument), because it's impossible to talk about any one of these elements without dealing with each of the others in some way. For example, when I discuss author, I can't describe how authorship on the Web works without dealing with the author/reader, author/text, and especially the author/argument relationships. All the elements share common ground, but that ground looks slightly different depending on which side the element appears. The ratio idea helps to see where the elements are. The container is the element I'm discussing, the thing contained is any other element that must be considered. So, when I'm discussing, say, authorship, I want to pay particular attention to author. When I talk about author and inevitably I have to bring up argument, it is argument as it applies to author. In this case, author contains argument.Throughout the work, at points, the discussion could equally considered be part of one of the other elements. But using the ratio approach means that each element will appear in the discussion of each other element, thereby allowing discussions to cross boundaries and blurring distinctions between elements.
Hypertext Theory
An Introduction?
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