Back to previous page. Page 44
Possibilities for Literary Analysis
Here are some thoughts I have had lately:
I have been thinking lately about a software program which might analyze any given work of literature, and profile in based on certain criteria.
If a piece of software could take the text of a novel, and tally up certain things; for example, simple things like first person narrative vs third person or a raw count of verbs nouns; or how many words in the work are devoted to pure description, and break that down further, into nature descriptions, bodily/facial descriptions, animate, inanimate, descriptions of feelings, moods.
Someone could analyze a work manually and establish the criteria. But then if the analytical process could be automated to analyze hundreds of works it might reveal something interesting.
Conceptually... it is possible to analyze a work from various criteria... and come up with some sort of measure.
The thing to do is start with the manual process of analysis, and define what it is we want to measure/tally emotional vs rational etc
That would be stage one. If stage one seemed fruitful/productive.... then stage two would be to attempt to automate the process.
How many romantic passages are there per author, like the provocative flirtatious sentences in Hardy; one feels a repressed, simpering sensuality?
The manual analysis is something any one of us could undertake. We must define what it is we want to measure. That is a huge undertaking though.
There are sentences which are description (and descriptions can be broken down by category). There are sentences which are action.. something happens/changes.
There are sentences which are moral judgements or philosophical propositions.
In the text questions are asked at times; at other times answers are given.
One might measure passages of joy vs sorrow vs terror vs humor etc but... then... to come up with a profile/numbers/graph for each author, for each genre, for each historical period, enabling one to compare Homer and Virgil with... Dante and Milton... for example
You may possibly ask how would we benefit from such statistics? What would they tell us? But I feel that if you never seek, you shall never discover. One must look for patterns.... trends, and then ask if they have meaning. Look how many centuries it took for us to figure out and be certain that matter is composed of atoms (which cannot be seen)
Then there is the matter of literature which is just a good story... vs.... symbolism hidden meanings.
I was looking at "Little Women" and thinking that perhaps there are not hidden levels as in Milan Kundera.
Of course, not everything one reads has to be loaded with symbolism and allegory.
There is the question of WHY each writer wrote. Some authors really needed money. Others were independently wealthy. Some had one agenda or another. A few were reclusive like Emily Dickenson.
I realize that not everything is deeply analyzable, certainly.
Or the question of why the author wrote the book.
My problem, or addiction if you will, is that I seek out such literature, looking for the profound, and i attempt to write like that as well. But there are whole other worlds, other ways, other reasons to write and read.
Look at that long period in history where authors works were SERIALIZED in newspapers or magazines, and where they were paid sometimes by the word, at other times by the page. Dickens may have been prolific based on such economic considerations.
How does that serialization affect the structure, style , plot? (you know.... each chapter fits in a magazine...with cliff hangers)
In Hemingway's "Moveable Feast," he describes how Fitzgerald confesses to "tweaking" his stories so the magazines will buy, and Hemingway is scandalized by such prostitution.
What was scandelous to various generations and how did that scandal affect the author? For example, Hardy, who retreated to years of poetry after the poor reception of Jude the Obscure.
I simply mention Hardy as an example of someone who changed their emphasis based on public criticism.
There are people who say that people like us who dwell upon literature have no life of our own.
Is it the case that people who write and read are escaping from real life/experience?
What makes one write novels like crime and punishment? Or read them for that matter.
Mark Twain said that the definition of great literature is something that everyone wants to be able to say they have read, but no one wants to take the time and effort to actually read it.
What we enjoy as children vs adolescence vs young adults vs mid life, vs old age.... acquired tastes.... we dont like something initially, but we grow into it... because we change...
Do we change in our tastes because we have changed as a natural function of aging ..... or is it the reading itself which changes us, transforms us.
This is a topic to which people may bring their actual life experiences. How I HATED Pride in Prejudice in high school, but now I can truly enjoy it: people can bring to the table such experiences. How I LOVED Catcher in the Rye as a teenager, but now find it tedious. Why the difference? What changed?
Discussion of such issues offers new possibilities, potentials.
People might look at the suggested topics and find something which really interests them but which they never would have thought about otherwise.
If folks can get an idea of what what such discussions are like... and it may snowball (grow larger and larger like a ball of snow rolled down a hill)... snowball the process so that it gains momentum and size.
There are people who read the books but for one reason or the other do not post any comments at the forum; the "lurkers."
What is it that inhibits certain people from posting comments, or sharing their poetry or prose? Perhaps, they fear failure or criticism or rejection.
Another topic for discussion.... "why do some remain silent lurkers..." Some people are shy.
Some people feel that others have more to say, or say it in a more clever manner.
There are casual readers, and then there are more serious readers.
But sometimes you enjoy an activity MORE, when you have some coaching. Just like, you enjoy a sport more, like golf or tennis or whatever, when you have some coaching to sharpen your performance.
Just the other week, I opened Hardy "Far from the Madding Crowd".... and found a passage about Bathsheba's lower and upper lip quivering, the lower corresponding to baser emotions vs the upper corresponding to more etherial concerns. One may look at that and say.... "well, Hardy feels under the gun to be creative, innovative, so he comes up with a notion,... and it is clever, but is it valid,... is it contrived.... and can one use it again?
Some feel it is unnecessary to analyze and find deep hidden meanings for such an approach is a more cerebral approach, more analytical.
Reading and writing literature is analogous to chess. One can learn enough about chess in one afternoon to play a simple game with another beginner. O one can devote ones life and attempt to be a grand master. Both ways are possible. Not everyone wants to be a grandmaster.
Kids can shoot baskets, but then they also go to see Magic Johnson and people in that league. Sometimes I think that every kid wants to be a Magic Johnson.
There was a TV show, Ally McBeal where a lawyer was encouraging her secretary to go to universtiy, get a law degree etc the secretary said, 'but you do realise that not everyone want to be a lawyer.. I am happy doing the secretarial work' and that is a valid choice.
Perhaps not everyone wants to be a Magic Johnson either. Some people are happy shooting hoops over the weekend.
They always encourage young children to say "oh, I want to grow up to be president' or make them think they have to want to be a doctor/lawyer. They feel that such ambitions are EXPECTED of them, and that it is politically incorrect to aspire otherwise.
A passtime is of one degree, an avocation is of another degree, a vocation is yet another degree
Sometimes one just wants to enjoy a nice meal without worrying about the ingredients and cooking methods and such nice meals should be balanced, or eventually, one's health suffers... especially where young students are involved (though certainly not that everyone is a young student)
Arnold Schwartznegger used to say "no pain, no gain"
There are several places in Plato's dialogues where Socrates discusses the notion that equates misanthropy with misology. isology is a reluctance to engage in the kind of deep, prolonged, focused Socratic dialogue which Plato recorded.
Misanthropy is hatred of ones fellow humans.
It is a fascinating notion which I have always wanted to understand better in Plato's dialogues.
Some find it a harsh notion, but it is what Plato discusses, and some lenght, in several dialogues... I dont pretend to throughly understand what Plato is getting at with the misology/misanthropy argument.
We can enjoy a simple scenry without knowing the type of trees growing, kind of animals living there.
I am thinking of that Walt Disney song,.... "would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar..."
The song basically is saying that if we work hard, we can be improve ourselves..... or... well.... the story of the ant and the grasshopper... the ant worked all summer while the grasshopper fiddled and played. Come winter, the ant was comfortable and the grasshopper was starving.
Should we strive to appeal to the greatest number of people, or is it ok if we are understood by only a very small audience.
Moses Maimonides, circa 1120, reckoned the greatest rabbinical thinker of all times, dedicated his greatest work "The Guide for the Perplexed" to "that ONE PERSON, who seeks to understand better..." ... i.e. he did not address vast multitudes, but only a select few Some may call that pure elitism or intellecutal snobbery, an attitude which alienates many. Maimonides' position is an interesting historical fact. Maimonides was wise in many ways to take that stance. Let us say that you are someone who desires to be more light hearted, fun, easy, friendly. I mean, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You can't be an olympic weight lifter and a couch potatoe or play chess for fun, and be a grand master as well.
If I were Maimonides... you might be telling me that you really don't want to make the efforts necessary to participate in a reading of the "Guide for the Perpelxed". So Maimonides would say "Okey dokey, I guess I shall dedicate to that small minority of one or two who DO want to go through the labor."
It's fun to see the breathtaking view from the top of Everest.... but if you want to see it with your own eyes, you must spend the time to get in shape and master mountain climbing. Otherwise, it is just National Geographics photos for you.
Shyness or insecurity seems like something one should overcome, but that is easier said than done.
The thing i posted by William Hazlitt. He has something awesome about this very topic:
"The man of greater taste or genius may be supposed to fling down his pen or pencil in despair, haunted with the idea of unattainable excellence, and ends in being nothing, because he cannot be every thing at once."
The world is transformed with words, one person at a time.
Back to previous page. Page 44
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.