Howell
06-24-2007, 09:04 AM
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070623/mathtrek.asp
It's an old stereotype: he who hates mathematics curls up with a book, and she who revels in numbers is bored by fiction. But Franco Moretti, an English professor at Stanford University, believes that a full understanding of literature requires mathematical tools. He is inventing a new school of literary history based on statistical analysis of data about novels rather than close readings of the texts themselves.
It's an old stereotype: he who hates mathematics curls up with a book, and she who revels in numbers is bored by fiction. But Franco Moretti, an English professor at Stanford University, believes that a full understanding of literature requires mathematical tools. He is inventing a new school of literary history based on statistical analysis of data about novels rather than close readings of the texts themselves.