The Intertextual Hub: a platform for intertextual studies of 18th-century France

Abstract

This article presents a comprehensive overview of the Intertextual Hub, an innovative digital platform designed to facilitate intertextual studies of 18th-century French literature. The platform leverages sophisticated computational methods such as text mining, natural language processing, or machine learning to enable a comprehensive analysis of extensive textual data, a series of approaches known as ‘distant reading’. The Hub incorporates various digital resources, including a vast collection of 18th-century French literary works, laws, decrees and revolutionary pamphlets, all of which are intended to provide a nuanced understanding of the intellectual and cultural landscape of the era. One of the notable challenges the Hub addresses is the disparity in digitisation quality and the inherent differences among various text collections. These challenges include variations in text formats, inconsistencies in metadata, and the diverse nature of the source materials, which range from literary works to official documents. The Hub’s modular architecture, built on the PhiloLogic text analysis engine, accommodates these variances by providing a unified experience for each collection. Researchers are presented with different entry points to explore the multifaceted nature of intertextuality in the period. The platform’s close reading interface is a pivotal aspect, facilitating an immersive and interconnected research experience through guided text exploration. By combining close and distant reading perspectives, users can seamlessly navigate between individual and larger groups of texts through shared themes, concepts or references, thus bridging the gap between these two different modes of reading. In short, the Intertextual Hub aims to foster a deeply interconnected research experience that enhances the understanding of the 18th-century corpus and the intellectual exchanges that shaped the period.