An Experimental History of Literature?

Abstract

This critical essay is devoted to Franco Moratti’s book Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History, whose Polish translation came out in 2016. Its critical focus rests mainly on the first figure of the triad proposed in the title, and assesses the Stanford comparativist’s strategy for carrying over methodologies from the empirical sciences to the study of literature. The essay’s commentary provides an opportunity to interrogate contemporary links between the humanities and the hard sciences. These reflections ultimately prompt us to question this division and, following in Moretti’s footsteps, help us unearth new approaches to literary studies that take their cue from the discursive practices of the hard sciences. This essay does not take as its point of reference the experimental approach that Moretti proposes, but instead an approach of creative experimentation - provoking an attitude of openness and the impulse to cultivate new, counter-intuitive methods for revisiting classical philological concepts.