Courtney Roby · 2016 · PDF · Calibre ID 4232
Resurfaced in Without Aid or Supervision (2026-10-05).
Role in the triad
Theory: the written machine
Why this book
Supplies the vocabulary (enargeia, generativity, the Helping Hand) and the ancient precedent for machine prose that may never be built and is often written for an audience; turns Roussel and Levé from eccentrics into the late end of an old genre.
Quotations
Verified against the book’s own text on the day of the reading.
- “ekphrastic descriptions carry the power of enargeia, the clarity of imaginary vision sparked in the reader” (p. 2)
- “The object may be real, theoretical, or imaginary; contemporary or historical; it may be familiar or something neither author nor reader has ever experienced.” (p. 14)
- “Because automata are designed to mystify an audience, Hero takes into account the perspective of the audience as well as the designer.” (p. 5)
- “once that part of the text is done, so is the machine.” (p. 199)
- “The alternative to this ‘lived-in’ space is a depopulated or impersonal construction space, in which the artifact seems to come together without human intervention.” (p. 205)
- “while there is indeed a Helping Hand in Greek mathematics, there seems not to be a Helping Imagination.” (p. 205, quoting Creese)
Themes
automata · description vs instruction · enargeia · generativity · Helping Hand · Hero of Alexandria · passive voice · Philo of Byzantium · technical ekphrasis