A Different Approach to Literature

In Franco Moretti's article "Graphs, Maps, and Trees," he approaches the study of literature in a way that most of us are not accustomed to. Most of us are extremely familiar with the idea of studying several well-known novels by close reading and careful analysis, but Moretti offers a different approach. He integrates scientific methods into the study of literature as a whole, not individual novels. He believes that by only focusing on a few novels we miss out of the majority of what literature has to offer us. We will read less than one percent of all novels, and so he focuses on studying literature in the big picture over time. He incorporates graphs into his article based on studies to show that they are certain trends, or cycles, in the development of literary works. He finds that the trends mark the rise and fall of certain genres and tries to offer explanations as to why these genres rise or fall.

There are several advantages of this method. Graphs can offer a great visual to present information, as sometimes it is easier to see things and to notice trends than trying to read them. Scientific methods for gathering information are also independent of interpretation, or are unbiased. This is a straightforward gathering of true events. This helps us to not miss out on the other 99% of literature if we look at it as a collection. We can also attempt to describe trends in literature according to the time period, and determine if social events had effects on literature. The drawbacks of such a method are that we do not focus on individual novels and the specific messages they have to offer. We only look at the genre as a whole and relate it to events in real life, but each novel has something different to offer.

Social, biological, and physical sciences have much to benefit from a method proposed by Moretti. Making graphs and using scientific methods are unbiased sources that can be used to prove a hypothesis and generalize things such as laws of nature or principles. These fields need to find generalizations, whereas literature may require closer and more careful interpretations.

A different approach to SSTLS could be to first focus on the social context, such as a dystopian movement. We could then try to see if there has been a trend towards literature of the same kind and quickly interpret messages they have to offer in order to relate that to SSTLS.