ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the changing ideas of literature and literary criticism in the Internet era. It argues that cyber literature is going through an “aesthetic turn.” The Internet, both as a form of media and as a technology, profoundly influences literature and turns literary representation of the quotidian aesthetically meaningful. Instead of stressing ideas such as “depth” and “profundity,” cyber literature embodies postmodern ideas such as “depthlessness” and “simulacrumization” and tends to be playful and commercialized. This chapter then discusses ten important notions in cyber literary criticism, which are all related to the postmodern nature of cyber literature. In the end, this chapter argues that in the Internet era, literature has gone through an important transformation, and literary scholars should adapt to this new condition in their literary studies.
