Geslachtelijke geschiedschrijving? Een distant reading van de evaluatie van mannelijke en vrouwelijke auteurs in Nederlandse literatuurgeschiedenissen

Abstract

Opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines and scholarly contributions alike are rife with indignant voices addressing the neglect or underestimation of women in high literature. While recent years have witnessed an upsurge in empirical, quantitative underpinning of the assumptions underlying this accusatory discourse, much of the extant literary research uses methods of close reading and critical discourse analysis. We argue that the field could benefit from more statistically informed additional studies that rely on distant reading methods. In this article, we look at Dutch literary histories published from the nineteenth century onwards. Using sentiment analysis and linear mixed-models we gauge the differences in appreciation of over 400 male and female authors, born between 1550 to 1850, and we look into longitudinal trends. Have literary historians been writing differently about female authors than about male authors? And has this changed over time? Our results indicate that, contrary to what is oftentimes suggested, women are associated with more positive words. Men, on the other hand, are associated with words higher in arousal and power. There is no visible trend over time, except for the power dimension: the gender gap has widened over the years.