Pop electronic literature: visual novel in the third generation of e-lit

Abstract

This paper presents excerpts from a dissertation that has already been argued and published in an academic repository in the field of Literature, with a focus on Literary Studies. Through it, we associate the video game format visual novel with electronic literature as a notable component of the third generation of this literary category. To do this, we first outline a panoramic perspective of the concept of electronic literature and its main chronological organizations based on the studies of N. Katherine Hayles (2009), culminating in the proposition of a third generation, further removed from the experimentalism of previous generations and closer to the communicational and expressive habits of the 21st century, by Leonardo Flores (2021). Next, we characterize the visual novel based on contributions by Ana Matilde Sousa (2014) and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon and Martin Picard (2015), as well as interviews with famous authors by Patrick W. Galbraith (2014) and John Szczepaniak (2014), highlighting its relationship with its development context and dialogues with digital literature practices. Originating in Japan in the 1990s, the visual novel has provided narrative reading experiences on digital devices such as video games and computers, often deeply intertwined with Japanese pop culture. We therefore conclude that although the visual novel does not have the experimental ambitions of the e-lit canon, it does have particularities that make it an accessible form of reading and writing in digital media, as well as a growing popularity and potential to create works that go beyond entertainment.