Computational Stylistics in Poetry, Prose, and Drama pp 37–⁠66

Abstract

The phenomenology of the aesthetic artefact on the one hand and the methodology of digitally analyzing and modeling empirically observed phenomena on the other appear to be epistemological opposites. Each belongs to one or the other of the opposing “Two Worlds” (CP Snow)–the former to the subjectively experienced “world” that is the subject of the humanities and arts, the latter to the quantifiable and objective domain that is of relevance to the sciences.

I argue against this dualistic distinction. I do so as a digital humanist, and for three reasons: firstly, because from a philosophical-historical perspective, the so-called methodological divide turns out to be a discursive trope rather than a logical necessity; secondly, because attempts to bridge the gap between hermeneutic and quantitative, formalistic methods can be traced back to well before the “digital turn,” namely to the late eighteenth century; thirdly, because it is indeed possible to conceptualize and build tools for the digital analysis of aesthetic artefacts–notably for that of literary texts–in which hermeneutic and formal-analytical methods can be productively combined. One such tool is the annotation software CATMA, which I discuss briefly as “proof of concept” for a new practice of digital text analysis termed“ scalable reading.” This epistemic practice explores the continuum between “close” and “distant” reading approaches in a methodical and controlled fashion that is designed to bring into fruitful contact the phenomenological and the phenomenal, i.e., the empirical perspective on poetic texts and poetry and their conceptualization. Setting such an ambitious objective has significant consequences for the designand development of software like CATMA, for it requires us to approach our task with a data and workflow model in mind that can map the fuzzy yet highly productive logic of the discursive hermeneutic circle onto the rigid base layer of non-ambiguous binary code.

About

Meister, J. C. (2023). Poetry, Phenomenon and Phenomenology. In A. S. Bories, P. Plecháč, & P. Ruiz Fabo (Eds.), Computational Stylistics in Poetry, Prose, and Drama: (pp. 37–66). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110781502-003

DOI
http://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781502-003

Print ISBN
978-3110-781-41-0

Online ISBN
978-3110-781-50-2

Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)