The laws governing the history of poetry
-
Colin Martindale✝
Abstract
Poetry and the other arts by definition require the production of novel artifacts. Someone who merely copies a poem or plays a piece of music is not thought of as a poet or composer. Even if this were not the case, we habituate to the repetition of the same thing and want something new. The pressure for novelty may be a major consideration or a nuisance for poets, but it has exerted a constant pressure since poetry was first written whereas other pressures have come and gone. When we consider how novel ideas are produced, we see that the pressure for novelty dictates not only that poetry will change across time but that it will change in a very specific direction. A theory describing how entropy must increase in poetry and that sorts of contents and styles must be found in the history of any poetic tradition is described. A content analysis of samples of British poetry by 170 poets born between 1290 and 1949 is described. Support for all of the theoretical predictions was found.
Abstract
Poetry and the other arts by definition require the production of novel artifacts. Someone who merely copies a poem or plays a piece of music is not thought of as a poet or composer. Even if this were not the case, we habituate to the repetition of the same thing and want something new. The pressure for novelty may be a major consideration or a nuisance for poets, but it has exerted a constant pressure since poetry was first written whereas other pressures have come and gone. When we consider how novel ideas are produced, we see that the pressure for novelty dictates not only that poetry will change across time but that it will change in a very specific direction. A theory describing how entropy must increase in poetry and that sorts of contents and styles must be found in the history of any poetic tradition is described. A content analysis of samples of British poetry by 170 poets born between 1290 and 1949 is described. Support for all of the theoretical predictions was found.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Theoretical and philosophical perspectives
- Studying literature and being empirical: A multifaceted conjunction 7
- Empirical research into the processing of free indirect discourse and the imperative of ecological validity 21
- Notes toward a new philology 35
- A theory of expressive reading 49
-
Part II. Psychology, foregrounding and literature
- Textual and extra-textual manipulations in the empirical study of literary response 75
- Foregrounding and feeling in response to narrative 89
- Two levels of foregrounding in literary narratives 103
- Narrative empathy and inter-group relations 113
- Effects of reading on knowledge, social abilities, and selfhood: Theory and empirical studies 127
- Imagining what could happen: Effects of taking the role of a character on social cognition 139
-
Part III. Computers and the humanities
- An automated text analysis: Willie Van Peer's academic contributions 161
- Computationally Discriminating Literary from Non-Literary Texts 175
- Metaphors and software-assisted cognitive stylistics 193
- Searching for style in modern American poetry 211
- The laws governing the history of poetry 229
- Consolidating empirical method in data-assisted stylistics: Towards a corpus-attested glossary of literary terms. 243
-
Part IV. REDES Project: The new generation
- Empirical evaluation: Towards an automated index of lexical variety 271
- Language allergy: Myth or reality 283
- Proper names in the translation of The Lord of the Rings 297
- Threat and geographical distance: the case of North Korea 309
- The Apology of Popular Fiction: Everyday Uses of Literature in Poland 317
- Afterword. A Matter of versifying: Tradition, innovation and the sonnet form in English 329
- About the contributors 343
- Index of authors 351
- Index of keywords 355
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Theoretical and philosophical perspectives
- Studying literature and being empirical: A multifaceted conjunction 7
- Empirical research into the processing of free indirect discourse and the imperative of ecological validity 21
- Notes toward a new philology 35
- A theory of expressive reading 49
-
Part II. Psychology, foregrounding and literature
- Textual and extra-textual manipulations in the empirical study of literary response 75
- Foregrounding and feeling in response to narrative 89
- Two levels of foregrounding in literary narratives 103
- Narrative empathy and inter-group relations 113
- Effects of reading on knowledge, social abilities, and selfhood: Theory and empirical studies 127
- Imagining what could happen: Effects of taking the role of a character on social cognition 139
-
Part III. Computers and the humanities
- An automated text analysis: Willie Van Peer's academic contributions 161
- Computationally Discriminating Literary from Non-Literary Texts 175
- Metaphors and software-assisted cognitive stylistics 193
- Searching for style in modern American poetry 211
- The laws governing the history of poetry 229
- Consolidating empirical method in data-assisted stylistics: Towards a corpus-attested glossary of literary terms. 243
-
Part IV. REDES Project: The new generation
- Empirical evaluation: Towards an automated index of lexical variety 271
- Language allergy: Myth or reality 283
- Proper names in the translation of The Lord of the Rings 297
- Threat and geographical distance: the case of North Korea 309
- The Apology of Popular Fiction: Everyday Uses of Literature in Poland 317
- Afterword. A Matter of versifying: Tradition, innovation and the sonnet form in English 329
- About the contributors 343
- Index of authors 351
- Index of keywords 355
