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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Moretti, Franco. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London: Verso, 2005.
Main Argument: Moretti is arguing for a literary history that is based on "distance reading," "where distance is however not an obstacle, but a specific form of knowledge" (1), and in which one moves from texts to models so as to get a sense of the interconnectedness of general elements. Rather than high theory, he draws on the natural sciences as an inspiration.
Introduction: Argument, Sources, Examples Moretti argues that "abstraction is not an end in itself, but a way to widen the domain of the literary historian, and enrich its internal problematic" (2).
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples Moretti discusses the insignificant fraction of a fraction of the total novels published that is the usual domain of literary historians, and how the actual output of literature is far vaster than any individual scholar could ever hope to grasp: "it's not even a matter of time, but of method: a field this large cannot be understood by stitching together separate bits of knowledge about individual cases, because it isn't a sum of individual cases: it's a collective system, that should be grasped as such, as a whole" (4). NB: quantitative research provides data, not interpretations. Moretti, following Braudel, discusses the relationship of event, cycle, and longue duree. The first and third are well understood, but the middle is less so: the trick is that "cycles constitute temporary structures within the historical flow" (14). The "hidden logic behind Braudel's tripartition" is that "the short span is all flow and no structure, the longue durée all structure and no flow, and cycles are the--unstable--border country between them"; they are temporary structures, and in literary history specifically, they are genres (ibid). In explaining the problem of short-lived genres, Moretti points out "the total heterogeneity of problem and solution: to make sense of quantitative data, I had to abandon the quantitative universe, and turn to morphology: evoke form in order to explain figures" (24). However, "the asymmetry of a quantitative explanation and a qualitative explanans leaves you often with a perfectly clear problem--and no idea of a solution" (26). Moretti points to "the cycle as the hidden thread of literary history" (ibid) and argues that the oscillation of genres and genders of authors is a process which "can only be glimpsed at the level of the cycle: individual episodes tend, if anything, to conceal it, and only the abstract pattern reveals the true nature of the historical process" (29). Quantitative data first are independent of interpretation, than demand an interpretation beyond themselves, and finally, "we see them falsify existing theoretical explanations, and ask for a theory, not so much of 'the' novel, but of a whole family of novelistic forms. A theory--of diversity" (30).
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples Moretti discusses the efficacy of (literary) maps: "not, of course, that the map is already an explanation; but at least it shows us that there is something that needs to be explained" (39). Maps, according to Moretti, "are a good way to prepare a text for analysis"; they involve reduction, abstraction, and artificiality, "and with a little luck, these maps will be more than the sum of their parts: they will posses 'emerging' qualities, which were not visible at the lower level" (53). The patterns the map (or the diagram) reveals, however, are "a sign that something is at work here--that something has made the pattern the way it is" (56). We can, hopefully, "deduc[e] from the form of an object the forces that have been at work," which "reveals form as a diagram of forces; or perhaps, even, as nothing but force" (57, 64).
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter looks at morphological trees, which track evolution by diversity and show how far new forms have evolved from common origins. Mapping literary history onto trees shows that "the very small, and the very large; these are the forces that shape literary history. Devices and genres; not texts" (76). Moreover, "this system of differences at the microscopic level adds up to something that is much larger than any individual text, and which in our case is of course the genre--or the tree," after which "the gene becomes an abstract 'diversity spectrum' (Mayr again), whose internal multiplicity no individual text will ever be able to represent," thus destroying typological thinking: no matter how excellent, a single example cannot stand for the whole (ibid). [The Darwinian parallels should be quite obvious here.] For literature, "these trees take the lost 99 per cent of the archive and reintegrate it into the fabric of literary history. […] whereas graphs abolish all qualitative difference among their data, trees try to articulate that difference" (77). Unlike in evolution, however, Moretti points out that in culture, "convergence…only arieson the basis of previous divergence, and its power tends in fact to be directly proportional to the distance between the original branches… Conversely, a successful convergence usually produces a powerful new burst of divergence" (80). Is culture path-dependent or plastic? [A: Plastic, obviously.] The answer depends on which field one is looking at to some extent, and there are barriers that cannot be overcome in those fields. Moretti argues that world literature, as comparative morphology, should "take a form, follow it from space to space, and study the reasons for its transformations" (90). He concludes, looking back over all three chapters, by pointing out that he takes "a somewhat pragmatic view of theoretical knowledge" in that we should evaluate theories "for how they concretely change the way we work"; by arguing for prioritizing "the explanation of general structures over the interoperation of individual texts" through "the definition of those larger patterns that are their necessary preconditions" (91). All of these share what Moretti calls "a materialist conception of form," although he no longer believes "that a single explanatory framework may account for the many levels of literary production and their multiple links with the larger social system," but instead thinks that "right now, opening new conceptual possibilities seemed more important than justifying them in every detail" (92).
Afterword by Alberto Piazza: Argument, Sources, Examples Piazza outlines the four mechanisms of evolution (mutation, natural selection, random genetic drift, and migration) and considers their applicability to literary studies. He notes that the fact that "non-linear phenomena are the norm and not the exception (one need only think of the simple phenomenon of growth in any discipline) constitutes one of the major limits to the development of quantitative models in every field of knowledge today" (107). Furthermore, "it is very important to understand that a tree-like structure (technically a 'topology') cannot reflect the phylogenesis of the object in question if its evolutionary history is not consistent with the assumptions on which the process of inference is based" (108-09). Finally, Piazza points out, while phylogenetic trees representing biological evolution presuppose the absence of natural selection, when those trees are used to represent the evolution of literary forms, cultural selection is the principal operator, since the concern is with trajectory rather than with origins.
Critical assessment: Give me a lever long enough and I'll move the world; the lever need not be particularly long if it is a book. It's sort of hard to critique a revolutionary text, and so it is with this one. One can only take what it says to heart in whichever way one pleases.
Further reading: Anne Burdic et al., Digital_Humanities; Stephen Ramsay, Reading Machines; Patrik Svensson, "The Landscape of Digital Humanities"
Meta notes: Don't miss the forest for the trees.
Main Argument: Moretti is arguing for a literary history that is based on "distance reading," "where distance is however not an obstacle, but a specific form of knowledge" (1), and in which one moves from texts to models so as to get a sense of the interconnectedness of general elements. Rather than high theory, he draws on the natural sciences as an inspiration.
Introduction: Argument, Sources, Examples Moretti argues that "abstraction is not an end in itself, but a way to widen the domain of the literary historian, and enrich its internal problematic" (2).
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples Moretti discusses the insignificant fraction of a fraction of the total novels published that is the usual domain of literary historians, and how the actual output of literature is far vaster than any individual scholar could ever hope to grasp: "it's not even a matter of time, but of method: a field this large cannot be understood by stitching together separate bits of knowledge about individual cases, because it isn't a sum of individual cases: it's a collective system, that should be grasped as such, as a whole" (4). NB: quantitative research provides data, not interpretations. Moretti, following Braudel, discusses the relationship of event, cycle, and longue duree. The first and third are well understood, but the middle is less so: the trick is that "cycles constitute temporary structures within the historical flow" (14). The "hidden logic behind Braudel's tripartition" is that "the short span is all flow and no structure, the longue durée all structure and no flow, and cycles are the--unstable--border country between them"; they are temporary structures, and in literary history specifically, they are genres (ibid). In explaining the problem of short-lived genres, Moretti points out "the total heterogeneity of problem and solution: to make sense of quantitative data, I had to abandon the quantitative universe, and turn to morphology: evoke form in order to explain figures" (24). However, "the asymmetry of a quantitative explanation and a qualitative explanans leaves you often with a perfectly clear problem--and no idea of a solution" (26). Moretti points to "the cycle as the hidden thread of literary history" (ibid) and argues that the oscillation of genres and genders of authors is a process which "can only be glimpsed at the level of the cycle: individual episodes tend, if anything, to conceal it, and only the abstract pattern reveals the true nature of the historical process" (29). Quantitative data first are independent of interpretation, than demand an interpretation beyond themselves, and finally, "we see them falsify existing theoretical explanations, and ask for a theory, not so much of 'the' novel, but of a whole family of novelistic forms. A theory--of diversity" (30).
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples Moretti discusses the efficacy of (literary) maps: "not, of course, that the map is already an explanation; but at least it shows us that there is something that needs to be explained" (39). Maps, according to Moretti, "are a good way to prepare a text for analysis"; they involve reduction, abstraction, and artificiality, "and with a little luck, these maps will be more than the sum of their parts: they will posses 'emerging' qualities, which were not visible at the lower level" (53). The patterns the map (or the diagram) reveals, however, are "a sign that something is at work here--that something has made the pattern the way it is" (56). We can, hopefully, "deduc[e] from the form of an object the forces that have been at work," which "reveals form as a diagram of forces; or perhaps, even, as nothing but force" (57, 64).
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter looks at morphological trees, which track evolution by diversity and show how far new forms have evolved from common origins. Mapping literary history onto trees shows that "the very small, and the very large; these are the forces that shape literary history. Devices and genres; not texts" (76). Moreover, "this system of differences at the microscopic level adds up to something that is much larger than any individual text, and which in our case is of course the genre--or the tree," after which "the gene becomes an abstract 'diversity spectrum' (Mayr again), whose internal multiplicity no individual text will ever be able to represent," thus destroying typological thinking: no matter how excellent, a single example cannot stand for the whole (ibid). [The Darwinian parallels should be quite obvious here.] For literature, "these trees take the lost 99 per cent of the archive and reintegrate it into the fabric of literary history. […] whereas graphs abolish all qualitative difference among their data, trees try to articulate that difference" (77). Unlike in evolution, however, Moretti points out that in culture, "convergence…only aries
Afterword by Alberto Piazza: Argument, Sources, Examples Piazza outlines the four mechanisms of evolution (mutation, natural selection, random genetic drift, and migration) and considers their applicability to literary studies. He notes that the fact that "non-linear phenomena are the norm and not the exception (one need only think of the simple phenomenon of growth in any discipline) constitutes one of the major limits to the development of quantitative models in every field of knowledge today" (107). Furthermore, "it is very important to understand that a tree-like structure (technically a 'topology') cannot reflect the phylogenesis of the object in question if its evolutionary history is not consistent with the assumptions on which the process of inference is based" (108-09). Finally, Piazza points out, while phylogenetic trees representing biological evolution presuppose the absence of natural selection, when those trees are used to represent the evolution of literary forms, cultural selection is the principal operator, since the concern is with trajectory rather than with origins.
Critical assessment: Give me a lever long enough and I'll move the world; the lever need not be particularly long if it is a book. It's sort of hard to critique a revolutionary text, and so it is with this one. One can only take what it says to heart in whichever way one pleases.
Further reading: Anne Burdic et al., Digital_Humanities; Stephen Ramsay, Reading Machines; Patrik Svensson, "The Landscape of Digital Humanities"
Meta notes: Don't miss the forest for the trees.