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Title
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Computational approaches to intertextuality : from retrieval engines to statistical analysis
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Author
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Abstract
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| A common device exploited by literary writers consists in the reuse of texts originally authored by others. In doing this, literary writers–often unconsciously–establish references to other texts and, thus, situate their work in relation to others within a large network of texts. This device of literary referencing is not only responsible for a particular artistic experience–which is based on the recognition of the links–, but has also the potential effect of enriching the interpretation and the meaning of the work in a larger context. A famous example from classic western literature is Ovid's beginning to the Amores: "arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam" ("I was planning to write about arms and violent wars using a heavy meter'') where Ovid reuses the beginning of Vergil's Aeneid: "arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris'' ("I sing of arms and the man, who first [came] from the shores of Troy'') In this case, the recognition of the parallelisms at multiple levels–e.g. the reuse of the word "arma'', the analogous syntactic construction using "-que'' (en. and), the adoption of the theme of war ("violenta bella'', en. violent wars) and the instruments of war ("arma'', en. arms), as well as the resemblance in metrical pattern–not only constitutes a core artistic value to this passage, but also let us situate the Amores–a love elegy–in relation to the epic literature of Vergil, to which it relates from the point of view of literary genres. The study of these referential processes in literary works has been systematized through the theory of "intertextuality'', whose application can considerably profit from the identification of parallelisms at scale. In particular, the identification of biblical references in Medieval religious literature constitutes a task in which computational methods can make an impact, given the central role of the Bible in these writings. This PhD thesis is concerned with the study of "intertextual'' links from a computational point of view, and aims at fulfilling two goals. The first one consists in improving the capacities of automated retrieval systems targeting cases of intertextual links. The second one emphasizes the usage of data-driven approaches to the study of intertextual processes. In order to accomplish these goals, this PhD thesis focuses on the use case of biblical references in the Latin Patrology–a large body of Medieval religious writings. |
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Language
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English
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Publication
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Antwerp
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University of Antwerp
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2021
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Volume/pages
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xxxix, 205 p.
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Note
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Kestemont, Mike [Supervisor]
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Full text (open access)
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