This thesis is an interactive exploration of hypertext's potential for growth out of its incunabular stage and into a medium that is read, written, and appreciated for its own unique qualities. For a long time, hypertext has lived in the house of its parental genres. Critics talk of it as the descendent of postmodern literature, theoretical experiment, time-based visual art, computer games, and a host of other interactive narratives or electronic texts. At the moment, though, hypertext is waiting for The Next Big Thing. There has been no galvanizing ur-text of the digital age. Hypertext is in its late adolescence, and the literary traditions and forms of criticism that have 'til-now fostered it must let it go.

Hypertext is its own medium and genre, having interactivity, electronicism, and literary merit by its own standard. Hypertext can be seen as an electronic (re)incarnation of literature, having all of the linguistic or rhetorical depth and complexity of print literature. Many other kinds of hypertext are possible too, ranging from hypermedial works experimenting with visual interactivity alone to texts that resemble graphic novels or film. However, the canon of hypertext, the work that has established itself as the prototypical literature and criticism, has (unconsciously?) instituted an orthodoxy. The most influential works - works like Michael Joyce's afternoon, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and George Landow's Hypertext 2.0 - have produced routine aesthetics giving the canon its current shape. These early works helped to establish hypertext as a serious literary genre (though still resting on the laurels of literary theory), but the literature and criticism must question its own roots if it is to truly live up to our expectations.

The fervent belief in the inherent routines present in the canon is stifling the growth of hypertext. I briefly discuss the limitations of the past in order to quickly move into new territory. The field has already seen several critics call for an evaluation of hypertext's value independent of print literature, a consideration of how writing and reading transforms in hypertext. I see my thesis as an exploration of this concept, of the new possibilities available to writers, readers, and critics in hypertext. There are many paths that the future of hypertext can take, not just one but many potentials of the medium. Consequently, my thesis looks at hypertext's progression/evolution in several ways. There are innovations in new texts that break form with early canonical literature and the critics who used that literature to define hypertext too narrowly. Although setting some definitions of hypertext is necessary, I argue for a broader set of a priori characteristics that allows for more experimental, transformational texts, while still defining hypertext as an electronic, interactive genre independent of print literature. I use several examples of unconventional hypertext to demonstrate the limitless creativity available to electronic authors.

Throughout all of this, I am trying to chart ways for hypertext to grow out of its incunabular stage by looking at it more openly. The objective of writing a thesis in the medium itself is to show primarily two things: 1) old and new theories about hypertext are interconnected and influence the medium accordingly, and 2) there are as many ways to theorize the future of hypertext as there are to read a single hypertext, and criticism must embody those alternatives. The field of hypertext depends on criticism that multiplies instead of eliminates, hypothesizes instead of defines.