Forking Paths

Evolution and Divergence in Early Modern European Drama

How did European drama fragment into national forms? Computational analysis of hundreds of early modern plays reveals new structural patterns.

The French théâtre classique, the English Renaissance and Restoration stage, the Spanish comedia nueva: by the late seventeenth century, European drama had crystallised into strikingly different traditions, each one with its own distinctive formal features. But how did this diversity arise? Drawing on a multilingual corpus of early modern plays and employing novel computational methods, Luca Giovannini offers here an empirical reconstruction of the evolution of dramatic literature in Europe between 1561 and 1710. Both a contribution to comparative literary history and a methodological proposal for the computational study of literary form, this book shows how quantitative approaches can help reshape long-standing humanistic debates.

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