Sentence Generator é tido como um dos exemplos mais antigos de máquinas generativas de texto. É um artefato ficcional, descrito por Jonathan Swift, no livro As viagens de Gulliver. Alguns exemplos de máquinas geradoras de texto não-ficcionais são Cent Mille Milliards des Poèmes, de Raymond Queneau, Literaterra, de Artur Matuck e Exquisite Mechanism of Shivers, de Bill Seaman. Seaman também é autor do livro Recombinant Poetics, uma pesquisa extensa sobre linguagens generativas: http://amzn.to/1GlWVQF. No Artigo, O sonho de Mallarmé, Arlindo Machado também discute o tema, a partir do Lance de Dados e outras experiências de escrita experimental que procuram fugir dos formatos discursivos predominantes desde os tempos de Homero (um contar que não extrapola o âmbito da descrição ações, conforme descrito por Havelock). A imagem usada neste post foi extraído do texto “Bill Seaman: Ex.Mech”, de Dieter Daniels.
mais sobre a pesquisa de Bill Seaman e sua relação com o universo da escrita generativa em:
https://rednoise.org/~dhowe/AoA/
https://rednoise.org/~dhowe/AoA/bastos.pdf
Trecho do livro de Swift (mesmo com um search numa versão DOC, não foi possível localizar numa primeira e rápida busca o trecho exata em que ele trata do Sentence Generator): “Imprimis: In the right coat-pocket of the great man-mountain” (for so I interpret the words quinbus flestrin,) “after the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse-cloth, large enough to be a foot-cloth for your majesty’s chief room of state. In the left pocket we saw a huge silver chest, with a cover of the same metal, which we, the searchers, were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us stepping into it, found himself up to the mid leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces set us both a sneezing for several times together. In his right waistcoat-pocket we found a prodigious bundle of white thin substances, folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures; which we humbly conceive to be writings, every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands. In the left there was a sort of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles, resembling the pallisados before your majesty’s court: wherewith we conjecture the man-mountain combs his head; for we did not always trouble him with questions, because we found it a great difficulty to make him understand us. In the large pocket, on the right side of his middle cover” (so I translate the word ranfulo, by which they meant my breeches,) “we saw a hollow pillar of iron, about the length of a man, fastened to a strong piece of timber larger than the pillar; and upon one side of the pillar, were huge pieces of iron sticking out, cut into strange figures, which we know not what to make of. In the left pocket, another engine of the same kind. In the smaller pocket on the right side, were several round flat pieces of white and red metal, of different bulk; some of the white, which seemed to be silver, were so large and heavy, that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. In the left pocket were two black pillars irregularly shaped: we could not, without difficulty, reach the top of them, as we stood at the bottom of his pocket. One of them was covered, and seemed all of a piece: but at the upper end of the other there appeared a white round substance, about twice the bigness of our heads. Within each of these was enclosed a prodigious plate of steel; which, by our orders, we obliged him to show us, because we apprehended they might be dangerous engines. He took them out of their cases, and told us, that in his own country his practice was to shave his beard with one of these, and cut his meat with the other. There were two pockets which we could not enter: these he called his fobs; they were two large slits cut into the top of his middle cover, but squeezed close by the pressure of his belly. Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom. We directed him to draw out whatever was at the end of that chain; which appeared to be a globe, half silver, and half of some transparent metal; for, on the transparent side, we saw certain strange figures circularly drawn, and thought we could touch them, till we found our fingers stopped by the lucid substance. He put this engine into our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill: and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us, (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly) that he seldom did any thing without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said, it pointed out the time for every action of his life. From the left fob he took out a net almost large enough for a fisherman, but contrived to open and shut like a purse, and served him for the same use: we found therein” several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold, must be of immense value.”
