Computation, Text, and Form in Literary Criticism: A Conversation with Claude 3.7

Abstract

Literary criticism operates with contradictory definitions of "text," rarely meaning simply the marks on a page. This makes it difficult to establish what "form" means. While critics do analyze features like rhyme and meter, or the distinction between story (fabula) and plot (syuzhet) criticism rarely seeks to understand how words are arranged in texts beyond these basics. Literary criticism selectively borrowed from Lévi-Strauss's structural analysis of myth (e.g. the concept of binary oppositions), it ignored a systematic methodology that was essentially computational in nature and about form. Now, Large Language Models present a watershed moment for literary studies-they're unavoidable and demonstrate sophisticated capabilities. A cohort of younger scholars using corpus linguistics and computational methods may represent a bridge between computational and literary approaches. Will these scholars extend computational thinking from method to theory?-using computation not just as an analytical tool but as a framework for understanding how literary texts function-that's a key issue currently before the discipline.

Keywords: digital humanities, literary criticism, literary form, machine learning, LLMs, large language models, method, cognitive science, cognitive criticism