Modes of Composition and the Durability of Style in Literature

David L. Hoover, Professor of English at New York University, holds a Ph.D. in English Language from Indiana University. He is Project Partner, “Quantitative Criticism,” Universität Stuttgart; Co-Investigator, “Distant Reading for European Literary History” (COST); and Advisor, “The Riddle of Literary Quality” (Netherlands). He is the author of “Simulations and Difficult Problems” (2019) and “The Microanalysis of Style Variation” (2017) in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, and Digital Literary Studies (with Culpeper and O’Halloran, Routledge, 2014).

1 Modes of Composition and the Durability of Literary Style

2 A Proof of Concept: Identifying Differences in Style

3 Changing Back and Forth from Handwriting to Dictation: Thomas Hardy, Walter Scott, and Joseph Conrad

4 Changing Over from Handwriting to Dictation or Typing: Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner

5 Changing Over from Handwriting or Typing to Word Processing: Arthur Clarke, Octavia Butler, Stanley Elkin, and Ian McEwan

6 The Durability of Change: Handwriting, Dictation, and Style Evolution in Henry James

7 The Durability of Stephen King’s Style

8 Why a Change in Mode is Not Enough: Translation and the Radical Durability of Style

9 Conclusion