computer generated poetry

Racter poses virtually no threat to human authors, nor does any other algorithmic author currently available. The question is hence not one of replacement, but of augmentation, of new responsibilities for the human author in light of the algorithmic one. When Juhl writes that computer-generated output lacks the intentionality of a text with a human author, he falls into a similar trap as Bök: both scholars fail to recognise the fundamentally human basis of algorithmic authorship. Human intention hasn’t disappeared, but is merely manifest in a new way. Indeed, The Policeman’s Beard’s apparent randomness is a rhetorical choice, and Racter’s nonsensical output pushes the limits of creativity by means of an intentional goal to be incomprehensible.

Textual analysis places great emphasis on determining the development and direction of authorial intention to illuminate a text’s layers of meaning. How, though, is one to determine the development of authorial intention in a text that appears to remove the traditional human author? This paper explores issues of authorship presented to genetic criticism (critique génétique) by algorithmically-produced texts – that is, texts produced through programmed logic in a computer rather than through direct human agency – such as those of the Twitter bot Pentametron (twitter.com/pentametron). This paper considers the perceived importance of authorship and human agency in the creation of a text. Algorithmic texts challenge contemporary notions of textual creation and development, in turn posing challenges to genetic criticism that are similar to those posed by cut-up texts in other media. This paper argues that Pentametron’s rather nonsensical algorithmic output stresses the reader’s responsibility for meaning-making, and suggests that such algorithmic texts are not so much final texts to be subjected to genetic critique themselves, but are more aptly considered to be forms of avant-texte. These avant-textes serve as inspiration for human-computer symbioses, for re-creations wherein readers make sense out of the seemingly senseless.

As the genre is still unknown to many in the Netherlands, this article serves as an introduction to computer-generated poetry in the Dutch-language field of literary studies. Via an analysis of the canonical Taroko Gorge (Montfort) and its remixes, the article considers how three characteristics of generative poetry - namely temporality, overwriting, and remixing - play with the idea of authorship.