
Graphs, Maps, Trees
Abstract Models for Literary History
Franco Moretti(Author)
Verso Books (Publisher)
Published on 17. September 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
119 pages
978-1-84467-185-4 (ISBN)
Description
In this groundbreaking book, Franco Moretti argues that literature scholars should stop reading books and start counting, graphing, and mapping them instead. In place of the traditionally selective literary canon of a few hundred texts, Moretti offers charts, maps and time lines, developing the idea of "distant reading" into a full-blown experiment in literary historiography, in which 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.
Reviews / Votes
It's a rare literary critic who attracts so much public attention, and there's a good reason: few are as hell-bent on rethinking the way we talk about literature. * Times Literary Supplement * The great iconoclast of literary criticism ... Moretti's discourse, as has often been noted, is marked by the same subtlety and unpredictability as his fellow Italian, Umberto Eco. * Guardian * Mr. Moretti makes his most forceful case yet for his approach, a heretical blend of quantitative history, geography and evolutionary theory. * New York Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 212 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
154 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84467-185-4 (9781844671854)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2020
Verso Books
€19.49
Available for download
Previous edition

Book
07/2005
Verso Books
€44.76
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
Franco Moretti is the author of many books, including Graphs, Maps, Trees; The Bourgeois; and Distant Reading, winner of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is Professor Emeritus at Stanford, where he founded the Center for the Study of the Novel and the Literary Lab.