Experimental Criticism: Franco Moretti and Literature

Experimental Criticism offers a series of close critical engagements with Franco Moretti, one of the world’s most innovative literary thinkers. Moretti is the author of among other works Signs Taken for Wonders, Modern Epic and Graphs, Maps, Trees. He is perhaps best known for his computational ‘distant reading’ of vast numbers of literary texts at the Stanford Literary Lab. In this book Francesco de Cristofaro and Stefano Ercolino lead a lively exploration of Moretti’s protean, experimental approach to literary criticism. Topics range from evolutionary theory and the sociology of literary forms to world literature and the Digital Humanities. A concluding part is dedicated to one of Moretti’s most prized research objects: the novel. Experimental Criticism recovers Moretti’s origins on the Italian Trotskyist Left and is enriched by essays from Moretti himself on Lukács’s Theory of the Novel and the tension between ‘close’ and ‘distant’ reading. ‘Why study literature?’, Moretti asks. For the pleasure of reducing complex things to their simple elements. To bring them back to earth.

Table of Contents:
Criticism as Experiment Francesco de Cristofaro and Stefano Ercolino I Towards an Intellectual History 1. Unrestrained Individuation Stefano Ercolino 2. Discourse on Method Francesco de Cristoforo 3. The New Anatomy Table Giuseppe Episcopo II Experimental Criticism 4. Essayism: Franco Moretti Guido Mazzoni 5. Morphology in America: Evolutionary Theory as an Experiment in Radical Sociology Andrea Miconi 6. Towards a More Rational Literary History Patricia McManus 7. Franco Moretti and the Sociology of Literature: Bridging Distant/Close Reading and Field Theory Gisèle Sapiro 8. The Moon and the Tides: Franco Moretti as Theorist of Literature Federico Bertoni 9. Serious Experiments Mads Rosendahl Thomsen 10. Can the Digital Humanities Kill Their Own Theories? Jérôme David 11. The Roads to Rome: Literary Studies, Hermeneutics, Quantification Franco Moretti III On the Novel 12. The Serious and the Tragic: Balzachian and Flaubertian Notes Francesco Fiorentino 13. The Novel, History, Politics: Franco Moretti and the Nineteenth-Century European Novel Françoise Lavocat 14. The Novel According to Franco Moretti Enrica Villari 15. Useless Masterpiece: Notes on Lukács's Theory of the Novel Franco Moretti Time Passes Franco Moretti Bibliography About the Authors

About the Author :
Francesco de Cristofaro teaches comparative literature at the University of Naples Federico II. He is the author of Zoo di romanzi (Zoo of Novels), Letterature comparate (Comparative Literature) and La palla al balzo (Leaping at the Chance). Stefano Ercolino teaches literary theory and comparative literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His books include The Maximalist Novel, The Novel-Essay and Empatia negativa (Negative Empathy).

Review :
A great iconoclast of literary criticism A sheer intelligence animates the pages of Moretti's work