Modelling Features of Characters: Some Digital Ways to Look at Names in Literary Texts

Abstract

In the context of ongoing research into new methods and techniques for literary research we describe a primary implementation of a web application called Autonom, intended to be developed into a framework for textual parsing algorithms that may be used by literary researchers to trace literary phenomena in texts. We describe the technical parsing fundamentals and good practices the development of the framework is based upon, we clarify different design considerations and choices and we present an overview of the current state of implementation and functionality. We also demonstrate the application of a proper name parsing algorithm implemented within the framework, meant to be the first step in a new method for the research of names in literary texts. The algorithm is tested on Karel Glastra van Loon's novel Lisa's adem >> ( Lisa's Breath >>, 2001). We go into the results that this test has yielded so far and summarily describe some of the consequences for the analysis of the names in the novel. We conclude with a short description of the directions new developments could take.