Quantitative Gattungsgeschichte

The scholarly book 'Quantitative Genre History' by Julian Schröter offers an innovative analysis of the German novella by combining traditional literary studies approaches with quantitative methods. It highlights the enduring contradiction between the strict conception of form and the skeptical viewpoint of some Germanists who regard the novella as mere fabrication. By linking poetological-normative and empirical interests in the literary market, a new approach to genre theory is opened up. The book examines how the aesthetic, economic, and political functions of the genre are interconnected and how media and political factors influence literary production. Using a mixed-methods approach and computational literary studies, it presents a modeling of literary history that addresses the complexity of literary genres. This approach allows for an analysis of the breadth of the literary market and a nuanced representation of the interactions between poetics and production.