The Computational Sublime in Nick Montfort's ‘Round’ and ‘All the Names of God’

What is it about?

This essay looks at selected text generating, computational poems by Nick Montfort in order to explore what is here called the 'computational sublime'. The concept of the sublime has a long and important history in discussions of literature and aesthetics, and it seems counterintuitive to think of it in relation to computational works. However, I here argue that in the specific examples analysed, 'Round' and 'All the Names of God', the boundlessness they give rise to and the tension between coding and the linguistic output they navigate may provoke reactions that may be understood through the notion of the sublime, specifically of the mathematical or computational kind.

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Why is it important?

This paper does something which is still relatively rare in literary studies: it takes computational poems as serious spaces for theoretical reflection about the question of literature today.