Distance Reading

Distant Reading Book Description

Literary criticism of the 20th century was close reading, which focused on revealing layers of meaning that helped to understand the text in depth, thus aiming to reach comprehensive conclusions through the identification of the central theme in the text and analysis of the developments in the plot.

In this sense, close reading; developments and interactions of individuals, events, ideas; It involved analysis of text structure, style, and argument patterns. Underlining that close reading cannot reveal the true scope and nature of literature, Franco Moretti, in an example he gives, emphasizes that a close reading of 19th century British novels will not say anything about the understanding of literature of the period, since only 5% of all published novels can be accessed.

According to Moretti, it is time for the reading strategy to change: We need to stop reading to understand literature! Franco Moretti highlights data analysis with the concept of distant reading he developed in his article titled "Considerations on World Literature" written in 2000.

According to Moretti, meaning in literature as a collective system; It should be understood as a quantitative integrity with communication networks, classification of literary structures, z-scores, principal component analysis, clustering coefficient, network theory and plot analysis. Franco Moretti challenges tradition by accepting literature as given in Distant Reading, in which he proposes an unconventional way to analyze literature.

(From the Promotional Bulletin)

Dough Type: 2nd Dough

Size: 13.5 x 19.5

First Printing Year: 2021

Number of Printings: 1st Edition

Language: Turkish