De macht van het woord met het getal ontleed

Abstract

As argued in this article, the digital analysis of literary texts could be enhanced by a closer connection between literary theories and digital techniques. Moretti tried to bridge the gap between the two, but did not fully succeed. Could a more systematic approach to what literary theory has to offer – explanatory hypotheses about the relations between textual structures, societal effects and intellectual shifts – and the requirements of analyses based on numbers (be it statistical patterns or other numeric patterns) help to make progress?