Enter the Digital: Emergent Materiality and the Digitization of Literary Texts: The Novel as a Case Study

The study has two main parts: the first one reviews the current scholarship and theories about the materiality of text in print and digital form exemplified in the works of Johanna Drucker, Jerome McGann, Matthew Kirschenbaum, G. Thomas Tanselle and D. F. McKenzie and then presents a hybrid model of materiality that is comprehensive and practical. This model is designed to make the most use of the capacities of the digital medium and it stems from an understanding of the material repercussions of the migration from print to digital. The second part elaborates on the elements of the codex book and overviews the history of the novel genre. This is to prepare a basis for a prototype for digitizing novels, called iNovel. The last part of the study presents a detailed description of the prototype and its different tools. This prototype serves as a realization of the theoretical model described earlier. L’etude comporte deux principaux volets: le premier examine l’erudition et les theories actuelles au sujet de la materialite du texte imprime et numerique illustres dans les travaux de Johanna Drucker, Jerome McGann, Matthew Kirschenbaum, G. Thomas Tanselle et D. F. McKenzie, et presente ensuite un modele hybride de materialite a la fois complet et pratique. Ce modele est concu pour exploiter au maximum les capacites du medium numerique et il decoule de la comprehension des repercussions materielles de la migration de l’imprime au numerique. Le deuxieme volet decrit les elements du livre codex et fait un survol de l’histoire du roman. Cela a pour but de preparer une base pour un prototype de numerisation de romans, appele iNovel. La derniere partie de l’etude presente une description detaillee du prototype et des ses differents outils. Ce prototype sert de realisation du modele theorique decrit plus haut. Mots-cles: Textualite numerique; Numerisation; Materialite; Romans numeriques