Moretti's Approach to Literature

Franco Moretti’s “Graphs, Maps, Trees” determines to find cycles in literary history regarding novel genres throughout different time periods in different countries. He does so by building on work from other researchers and analyzing graphs that show the fluctuations of novels in different times. This kind of approach to literature has its benefits because the quantitative work is cooperative. It is ideally independent from any individual researcher because it is a collective system. This quantitative approach is useful because thousands of novels have been published, making it nearly impossible to do close readings on it due to time constraints. We cannot simply connect separate bits of knowledge about distinct cases because they must be understood as being collective. It must be seen as a whole, and graphs are an effective way to study this.

This quantitative research provides data that is ideally independent of interpretations. This is beneficial because it offers an objective viewpoint regarding novels. However, this method is also a drawback. It provides data, but not interpretations. Although we can deduce the number of novels produced and when they were produced, we cannot determine why they were produced during that time from these graphs. We can find the values from graphs, but they give no insight to the reasons behind the values. Also, this approach to literature is based solely from an objective viewpoint, giving no subjective perspective towards the literature.

Other interdisciplinary projects that combine literature with social sciences would be observing the historical events occurring simultaneously with the time periods of the novels’ fluctuations. One could examine the relationship between a country’s political issues and the number of novels produced in that country. Or one could study the social movements within a country and how it affects the production and fluctuation patterns of books and its genres. This can be done by grouping novels into different genres and examining the contents within the books.

A method of approaching SSTLS would be to observe the prevalence of social issues during its time of publication. This novel satirizes the issues of today’s culture. By taking into account the topics covered in the book, such as the political, social, and technological issues, we can better understand the meanings behind the novel and the different references it makes throughout the book. We can then compare the novel’s genre to other genres of the same time period and see if it reveals a bigger picture that pertains to the social movement of our time.