Literary “higher dimensions” quantified: a stylometric study of nine stories

Abstract

Abstract The study will focus on the quantitative assessment of nine stories, considered important contributions in the supernatural and in the early and modern science-fiction prose. Besides the two treatments of the topic of imaginary Flatland – penned by E. A. Abbott and C. H. Hinton –, the corpus includes writings by H. G. Wells, A. Blackwood, M. Leinster, G. Waldeyer, R. A. Heinlein, L. Padgett, and A. C. Clarke. Texts are researched on the bases of four analyses (moving-average type-token ratio, average tokens length, Busemann’s coefficient, and collocation associativity), with the results tested for statistical significance; next, the textual comparisons will provide a springboard for sketches of literary criticism interpretations. The analyzed corpus has revealed the distinctive and colorful take writers have in their stories. By the nature of their subject, the texts are expected to share higher dimensions and time warps, a thread implying a meeting point in terms of vocabulary richness, plot development, and possibly of narrative structure. Yet, in most cases, the findings suggest basic and nuanced differences, hinting at clear stylistic physiognomies in the authorship. The outcome affects not only the assessment of the weight individual samples have, but also the interface between a common (sub)genre and personal style.