In this lesson, we would like to increase your awareness of the complexity of digital multimodal objects which combine many different boundaries.

Of course, digital culture already has such a combining effect on texts themselves. As Roger Chartier noticed, “the digital revolution causes anyway the blurring of the distinctions between textual genres and their identifying markers” (R. Chartier, Les métamorphoses du livre: Les rendez-vous de l’édition. Le livre et le numérique, Paris: Bibliothèque du Centre Pompidou, 2001, 39).

This effect is further accentuated when one adds images and/or sounds to texts. We invite you to begin by discovering a website and to analyze it through some questions. The general questions are:

What literary genre and field does this object represent? What helps you to determine this classification? What prevents you from doing so?

Please, visit and explore the website: Virtual St Paul's Cathedral Project. A Digital Re-creation of worship and preaching at St-Paul's cathedral in early Modern London, https://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu/

Begin by taking some notes and trying to classify the object by literary genre and field. The following questions can help you in your classification quest:

• Consider the sound aspect: does it influence your perception of the literary genre and represented field?
• What about the images: do they influence your perception of the literary genre and represented field?
• Take into consideration the textual elements: do they influence your perception of the literary genre and the represented field?
• What about the sources, the references?
• Who has produced this website? Which qualifications have been gathered together for this project?

... are you now able to choose a literary genre and a field for this object?

Please write two paragraphs about your observations. If you are in a classroom, share your comments with another student.

Then go to the next step.