From Homer to Goethe and Beyond to AI

"To understand the soul of a poet, or at least his main concern, let us search in his works to see which word or words are most often represented there."
Charles Baudelaire, Collected Works, vol. 3, Paris, 1966.


"Promising approach."
Noam Chomsky, Prof. of Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA


"In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Jakob Margolis bridges the realms of linguistics, literature, and information technology. This pioneering work not only offers new insights into the lexical heartbeats of literary masterpieces spanning millennia but also serves as a valuable resource for scholars, poets, and AI developers alike. Drawing upon cutting-edge digital text analysis techniques and revealing the most frequently used nouns ranked by their occurrence, Margolis introduces an innovative frequency-based approach that unlocks profound insights into the core concepts and evolutionary trajectories of poetic language across cultures, religions, and eras. This masterful synthesis of quantitative analysis and literary interpretation marks a significant contribution to the understanding of poetic languages, promising to refine our appreciation of these seminal texts."
Mikhail Epstein Prof. of Cultural Theory and Literature at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA