On the comparison of literary and scientific styles: the letters and articles of Max Born, F. R. S

Abstract

There has been much scholarly activity in literary textual analysis; problems have included the literary analysis of characters, the disputed authorship of texts, hidden insertions in another hand and the continuation of incomplete texts. Classically the interpretations of these literary problems are given in terms of literary judgements, but there are no reasons to forbid numerical arguments based on statistical techniques, and it is to be hoped that literary and statistical judgements are seen not as contradictory but as complementary. If we can use the much-burdened word ‘style’, then we would hope that the choice between the use of literary and statistical judgements can be viewed as an exercise of style by the person making the judgement.