thumb|right|300px|[[B. S. Johnson's novel The Unfortunates was printed in 27 separate unbound sections: the opening chapter called "First", the final chapter called "Last", and the other 25 to be read in any order.]]
Ergodic literature is a mode of textual organization in which nontrivial effort is required for the reader to traverse the text, beyond ordinary eye movement or turning pages.</blockquote>
His aim in providing this definition is to offer a radical break from earlier theories of Hypertext, which he says fall trap to 'an essentialist idea of "the computer medium" as a singular structure of well-defined properties,' As an example, he gives Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, where he says there is little for the reader to actually, strategically, do, in contrast with Multi-User Dungeons, where the player is (at least partially) responsible for their character
- Access: Whether scriptons are readily available to the user (Random) or not (Controlled). As an example, he gives the typical codex, which may be opened to any page, at any time, in contrast with hypertexts such as Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, where accessing a specific passage may require from the reader to follow a specific path through other passages.
- Linking: Whether the text is organised by links that are available to the reader at any point (Explicit), or only under certain circumstances (Conditional), or whether there are no links in the text whatsoever (None). As an example, he again gives Michael Joyce's afternoon, where certain parts of the text are accessible only once the reader has visited specific other passages.
- User functions: Whether the reader only interprets the text (Interpretative) - a function present in all texts - or if they also decide what paths to take (Explorative), chooses or creates scriptons during a specific reading session (Configurative), or adds permanently to the body of the text (Textonic). As an example of a text that the reader explores he gives Julio Cortázar's Rayuela, for a text that the reader configures he gives Raymond Queneau's A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, and for a text the reader permanently alters, he gives Allen S. Firstenberg's Unending Addventure.
{| class=wikitable
|-
! scope="col" style="width: 150px;" | Variable
! scope="col" style="width: 400px;" | Possible value
|-
| Dynamics || Static, Intratextonic Dynamics, Textonic Dynamics
|-
| Determinability || Determinable, Indeterminable
|-
| Transiency || Transient, Intransient
|-
| Perspective || Personal, Impersonal
|-
| Access || Random, Controlled
|-
| Linking || Explicit, Conditional, None
|-
| User function || Interpretative, Explorative, Configurative, Textonic
|}
These seven variables are capable of producing a total of 576 unique media positions (3 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 4), of which conventional hypertext and literature represent only a small part. Among these, Aarseth defines an 'ergodic text' as any one which requires at least one of the three other user functions beyond mere interpretation. The concepts of cybertext and ergodic literature were of seminal importance to new media studies, in particular literary approaches to digital texts and to game studies.
Cybertext has also been suggested as a tool to enhance learner engagement and motivation in language education.
Examples
Aarseth gives two major lists of examples of ergodic literature throughout the work – first in the opening chapter, then in the third, where a possible typology is discussed. The major examples listed throughout the work include:
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Examples given by Espen Aarseth
|-
! Title !! Creator !! Format or Description
|-
| (No specific example or location identified) || Ancient Egyptians || Stone wall inscriptions of the temples in ancient Egypt that are connected two-dimensionally (on one wall) or three dimensionally (from wall to wall or room to room).
|-
| afternoon: a story || Michael Joyce || Published by Eastgate Systems, it is one of the earliest examples of hypertext literature, along with Victory Garden.
|-
| Agrippa|| William Gibson || A 300-line semi-autobiographical novel. It exists in two forms, either on a 3.5" floppy disk, where the text scrolls by automatically, and encrypts itself once it has passed, or as an artist's book, of which the pages have been treated with photosensitive chemicals, such that the first exposure to light would effect gradual fading.
|-
| Book Unbound || John Cayley || A "holographic sentence generator that merges and mutates other texts, inviting readers to feed their favorite results back into the system." || J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst || Composed of the novel Ship of Theseus (by the fictional V. M. Straka), hand-written notes filling the book's margins, and supplementary material loosely inserted between the pages.
|-
| The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy || Nick Bantock || Three stories, told through a series of letters and postcards between the two main characters. Every page features a postcard or a letter enclosed in an envelope.
|-
|XX || Rian Hughes || A science fiction novel told in part through ephemera such as declassified documents, artworks, graphics, and a novel within the novel
|}
See also
- Aleatoric art
- Cybertext
- Digital poetry
- Electronic literature
- Fighting Fantasy
- Interactive fiction
- Rhizome
- Encyclopedic novel