Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History | 
 enlarge | Author: Franco Moretti
Publisher: Verso
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 103178
Media: Paperback
Pages: 124
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.5
ISBN: 1844671852
Dewey Decimal Number: 401
EAN: 9781844671854
Publication Date: September 1, 2007
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Product Description
The 'great iconoclast of literary criticism' reinvents the study of the novel.
Franco Moretti argues heretically that literature scholars should stop reading books and start counting, graphing, and mapping them instead. He insists that such a move could bring new lustre to a tired field, one that in some respects is among "the most backwards disciplines in the academy." Literary study, he argues, has been random and unsystematic. For any given period scholars focus on a select group of a mere few hundred texts: the canon. As a result, they have allowed a narrow distorting slice of history to pass for the total picture. Moretti offers bar charts, maps, and time lines instead, developing the idea of "distant reading" into a full-blown experiment in literary historiography, where the canon disappears into the larger literary system. Charting entire genres—the epistolary, the gothic, and the historical novel—as well as the literary output of countries such as Japan, Italy, Spain, and Nigeria, he shows how literary history looks significantly different from what is commonly supposed and how the concept of aesthetic form can be radically redefined.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Moretti changed the way I think about studying literature September 29, 2005
Benjamin Keane (Portland, OR)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book proposes an entirely different approach to literature. Where criticism and study have traditionally focused on a single work or collection of works, Moretti's provocative thesis suggests studying hundreds or even thousands of books, and by no means restricting the field to the accepted canon; rather, he offers a critical framework based on cartographic priciples, and argues persuasively that this method will yield far more interesting results. This book will probably become standard reading in English college courses, especially ones dealing with literary criticism and theory, but it is really essential for anyone who is interested in literature, and new ways of thinking about it.
A fresh approach to literary history August 31, 2006
Thomas F. Glick (Boston, MA USA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Moretti has added a completely novel dimension to literary history, which traditionally has addressed only individual works, but never broader trends. If literary scholars don't recognize this terrain and why it is important, sociologists of knowledge certainly will. Graphs on the growth of production of novels, for example, reveal the characteristic curves of innovation diffusion. Aggregate quantitative results open the way for solider explanations of the relationship between literature and its ambient socities.
A bold and revolutionary approach to literary scholarship August 14, 2005
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
Graphs Maps Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary Theory is a bold and revolutionary approach to literary scholarship. Stanford University literature teacher Franco Moretti argues passionately that for too long, those who study literature have restricted themselves to a narrow handful of canon texts, thus allowing their view of literary history to be terribly distorted by a skewed sample base. Instead, Moretti claims, the discipline should start charting, graphing, and mapping themes and trends of larger literature samples, in order to systematically reveal trends and a larger picture. Drawing heavily on research and seamlessly blending the critical objectivity of mathematics with more traditional forms of literary evaluation, Graphs Maps Trees is a breath of fresh air and enthusiastically recommended for college literary studies and reference shelves, due to its daring challenge to the status quo.
A good new approach, but problems in the execution January 9, 2006
Joe Omalley (san francisco)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Moretti uses diagrams as a way of investigating literary history. He is pretty succesful considering the difficulty of the task.
The important part of the book is the diagrams. Moretti wisely admits that his commentary is secondary; supersedable with better later interpretations.
The best diagrams are in the "graph" section. His graph of the number of books published per year at the begining of the book trade in countries like Britian, Japan, and Nigeria does seem to show a similarly shaped ramp up at different historical periods; and his discussion of the effect of the number of books published on readers is good. His diagram showing the numbers of books published in England in the epistolary, gothic, historical genres does show these genres as effectively replacements for one another in the market; the next genre rising as the last genre fades. The diagram showing the percentage of male and female authors is interesting. Unfortunately, that graph doesn't use a five year running average like some of his other graphs so his discussion of a pattern of "oscillation" is unpersuasive. It is probably just random "noise".
The diagrams in the "map" section would be improved if Moretti returned to his previous practice of showing the underlying geographic features.
The best diagram in the "tree" section is the diagram that shows the development of concept of the "clue" in detective stories. The diagrams in this section are inspired by diagrams of relatedness shown by genetic drift among human populations, as shown in the important book "The History and Geography of Human Genes". (One of the authors of that book also discusses and critiques Moretti's approach in the afterward) The diagrams themselves are more related to cladistics- a method of estimating relationships between species from the different species's properties- than to the "genetic drift" diagrams Moretti was inspired by. These "tree" diagrams show promise but a potential problem is the more complex structure of literary influence as compared to biological influence. Each author reads many books and can be influenced by elements of any book they read. On the other hand, I wouldn't be suprised if, in 50 years, anaylsis of digital libraries with AI is used to do such complex literary cladistics.
 A Good Experiment, and Worth a Read August 23, 2008
Nada O'Neal (New York, NY USA)
I like to see any new attempts at rigorously analyzing qualitative data, especially attempts that don't merely rely on simple coding. I also like to see visual and schematic thinking in action. Moretti's book isn't quite a revelation, not quite the start of a revolution, but it's worth exploring. Maybe one day he'll be acknowledged as one of the granddaddies of a new kind of thinking. Absolutely worth reading and digesting, but don't necessarily expect it to rock your world.
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