Graphing Literary History

Considering Franco Moretti’s Graphs, Maps and Trees, I tried to think of a way in which one of these mechanisms could provide a way for me to better understand the world of literary theory and criticism.  According to Moretti, “all great theories of the novel have precisely reduced the novel to one basic form only (realism, the dialogic, romance, meta-novels…); and if the reduction has given them their elegance and power, it has also erased nine tenths of literary history.  Too much” (30).  This reduction seems particularly problematic because it limits certain texts to critical inquiry within a certain field.  If texts were considered for their social impact at large, rather than their contribution to a specific genre, it seems that there might be more that could be understood about the nature of text, writing and writing on a larger scale.  Widening the scope of critical analysis, then, seems enabled by the graphs proposed by Moretti.

Using graphs might enable critics to think about reading in a way that is not so closely tied with the canon.  Rather than consistently considering the texts which have, for one reason or another, persisted in popularity and continually made the curricula for high school English classes and the syllabi in English college courses, graphs present a way of thinking about reading without specifically considering these canonical texts.  As the canon itself has come under fire given the rise of feminism, civil rights, post colonialism (and any other –ism I am forgetting at present), it seems that only exploring these texts critically is ultimately doing a disservice to the less conventional texts not written exclusively by white men. 

With this thought in mind, I feel that a graph could be applied to Lee Morrissey’s article “Re-reading Reading in Eighteenth-Century Literary Criticism.”  In this article, Morrissey explores the political atmosphere which deemed the acceptability of reading at large as well as the types of text which were tolerable to read at a given moment.  Considering various arguments regarding reading, Morrissey explains differences in opinions which resulted in the changing popularity of reading throughout the eighteenth century.  Discussing Hooke’s stance on reading, Morrissey writes that “For Hooke’s, texts represent the man-made in general; in their dirty irregularities they show ‘the dangers in the process of human reason, the remedies of them all can only proceed from the real, the mechanical, the experimental philosophy’” (166).  Similarly, Morrissey discusses Sprat and Dryden’s aversion to complicated textual passages and “swellings of style” (166).  Morrissey also notes contributions by Locke and Pope, who suggested that words have no natural meaning and that meaning can be garnered through channeling the spirit of the author, respectively. 

With so many opinions on the concept of reading and textual influence, it seems that a graph may be helpful in sketching out the conflicts and comparisons which coincide with publishing and the popularity of books at a given moment in history.  Rather than tracking the popularity of one specific text, looking at the popularity of reading might actually provide some insight into the ways in which politics shape the way that people read as well as the types of texts which are published.  This type of graph seems to have larger political ramifications than does a close of reading of say, Hawthorne.