ArteActa

ArteActa 2019, 3:41-56

Close/Distant Reading of Hamlet. Franco Moretti's Historical Materialism

František A. Podhajský

Franco Moretti is one of the classics of comparative literature and pioneers of digital research in literary criticism. His concept of "distant reading", formulated for the first time at the turn of the century, has determined the debate over the last twenty years on the benefits and risks of quantitative methods in the humanities. The present paper puts this concept in a broader context in three different directions. First of all, it follows its development, which it underwent in Moretti's work during his time at the Stanford Literary Lab. Second, it compares the results of the new methods - on the example of Shakespeare's Hamlet - with those previously achieved by Moretti through the sociology of literary forms. Finally, it puts distant reading into the context of the Marxist tradition on which Moretti originally built his reflections on art and literature.

Keywords: Franco Moretti, William Shakespeare, distant reading, digital humanities, historical materialism, Marxism, formalism

Published: December 15, 2019  Show citation