SOURCE: "Literature, Technology, People," in Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. III, No. 4, Fall, 1982, pp. 61-74.

In the following essay, Poirier examines the perception that technology—specifically electronic media—poses a threat to the cultural position of literature.

From the outset, I will be involved with four terms, so large that it seems presumptuous to contend with them in an essay of this length. The terms are Literature, Technology, People, and, by implication, power. It would be foolhardy to proceed as if it were possible ever to come into firm possession of one, much less all of these words. Each has a radically different meaning in different historical periods and within different cultures. For energetic inquiry, their mere lexical definition, accompanied by lists and dates of variation, is almost useless. In addition, any one of the four wobbles in an argument whenever it...