Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0007243, Sat, 7 Dec 2002 16:49:13 -0800

Subject
: Visual net spins literary web
Date
Body
EDNOTE
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>

> The TextArc program (at http://www.textarc.org) is very
> intriguing, although the demo won't run on my computer. I
> have done something similar for my clients, when an article
> or parts of a book (typically the introduction plus
> conclusion) need to be restructured to present the
> information in the most effective way. I print the entire
> article or chapter at 9 or 12-up (9 or 12 pages per printed
> page) and then tape the small pages to a wall. Using
> highlighters plus an indexing or concordance program, we can
> then figure out what the most important concepts are and how
> they are (or should be) linked. Of course it doesn't look
> like a work of art, as the TextArc output does; it looks
> like a very messy wall. I've also experimented with using
> this method for literary analysis, but it is difficult with
> long texts--just as it seems to be for the TextArc program.
> It would work very well on the poem "Pale Fire," but the
> whole novel would probably be too long. Putting "Pale Fire"
> through the program might be a valuable exercise, since it
> combines the functions of a word-frequency counter, indexer,
> and hypertext concordancer, and presents the output in a
> visual rather than a linear array, which might be helpful
> for a formal/structural analysis. At the moment, though,
> TextArc is only being run on texts in the public domain
> (from the Gutenberg Library) and there is no mention of when
> (or whether) the program will be available as a freestanding application.
>
> Mary
>