Quantitative criticism of literary relationships
Authors often convey meaning by referring to or imitating prior works of literature, a process that creates complex networks of literary relationships ("intertextuality") and contributes to cultural evolution. In this paper, we use techniques from stylometry and machine learning to address...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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National Academy of Sciences
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112945 |
| _version_ | 1826213841479925760 |
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| author | Dexter, Joseph P. Tripuraneni, Nilesh Dasgupta, Tathagata Kannan, Ajay Brofos, James A. Bonilla Lopez, Jorge A. Schroeder, Lea A. Casarez, Adriana Rabinovich, Maxim Haimson Lushkov, Ayelet Chaudhuri, Pramit Katz, Theodore R. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dexter, Joseph P. Tripuraneni, Nilesh Dasgupta, Tathagata Kannan, Ajay Brofos, James A. Bonilla Lopez, Jorge A. Schroeder, Lea A. Casarez, Adriana Rabinovich, Maxim Haimson Lushkov, Ayelet Chaudhuri, Pramit Katz, Theodore R. |
| author_sort | Dexter, Joseph P. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Authors often convey meaning by referring to or imitating prior works of literature, a process that creates complex networks of literary relationships ("intertextuality") and contributes to cultural evolution. In this paper, we use techniques from stylometry and machine learning to address subjective literary critical questions about Latin literature, a corpus marked by an extraordinary concentration of intertextuality. Our work, which we term "quantitative criticism," focuses on case studies involving two influential Roman authors, the playwright Seneca and the historian Livy. We find that four plays related to but distinct from Seneca's main writings are differentiated from the rest of the corpus by subtle but important stylistic features. We offer literary interpretations of the significance of these anomalies, providing quantitative data in support of hypotheses about the use of unusual formal features and the interplay between sound and meaning. The second part of the paper describes a machine-learning approach to the identification and analysis of citational material that Livy loosely appropriated from earlier sources. We extend our approach to map the stylistic topography of Latin prose, identifying the writings of Caesar and his near-contemporary Livy as an inflection point in the development of Latin prose style. In total, our results reflect the integration of computational and humanistic methods to investigate a diverse range of literary questions. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:55:41Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/112945 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:55:41Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1129452022-10-02T05:08:56Z Quantitative criticism of literary relationships Dexter, Joseph P. Tripuraneni, Nilesh Dasgupta, Tathagata Kannan, Ajay Brofos, James A. Bonilla Lopez, Jorge A. Schroeder, Lea A. Casarez, Adriana Rabinovich, Maxim Haimson Lushkov, Ayelet Chaudhuri, Pramit Katz, Theodore R. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Katz, Theodore R. Authors often convey meaning by referring to or imitating prior works of literature, a process that creates complex networks of literary relationships ("intertextuality") and contributes to cultural evolution. In this paper, we use techniques from stylometry and machine learning to address subjective literary critical questions about Latin literature, a corpus marked by an extraordinary concentration of intertextuality. Our work, which we term "quantitative criticism," focuses on case studies involving two influential Roman authors, the playwright Seneca and the historian Livy. We find that four plays related to but distinct from Seneca's main writings are differentiated from the rest of the corpus by subtle but important stylistic features. We offer literary interpretations of the significance of these anomalies, providing quantitative data in support of hypotheses about the use of unusual formal features and the interplay between sound and meaning. The second part of the paper describes a machine-learning approach to the identification and analysis of citational material that Livy loosely appropriated from earlier sources. We extend our approach to map the stylistic topography of Latin prose, identifying the writings of Caesar and his near-contemporary Livy as an inflection point in the development of Latin prose style. In total, our results reflect the integration of computational and humanistic methods to investigate a diverse range of literary questions. 2017-12-22T20:59:01Z 2017-12-22T20:59:01Z 2017-02 2016-07 2017-12-22T17:20:31Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0027-8424 1091-6490 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112945 Dexter, Joseph P., et al. “Quantitative Criticism of Literary Relationships.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 114, no. 16, Apr. 2017, pp. E3195–204. © 2017 National Academy of Sciences http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611910114 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Dexter, Joseph P. Tripuraneni, Nilesh Dasgupta, Tathagata Kannan, Ajay Brofos, James A. Bonilla Lopez, Jorge A. Schroeder, Lea A. Casarez, Adriana Rabinovich, Maxim Haimson Lushkov, Ayelet Chaudhuri, Pramit Katz, Theodore R. Quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| title | Quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| title_full | Quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| title_fullStr | Quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| title_full_unstemmed | Quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| title_short | Quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| title_sort | quantitative criticism of literary relationships |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112945 |
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