6.0687 Rs: Stat Methods; Calvin&Hobbes; Judas (4/96)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 20 Apr 1993 11:20:32 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0687. Tuesday, 20 Apr 1993.


(1) Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 16:27 EDT (41 lines)
From: Susan Hockey <HOCKEY@ZODIAC.BITNET>
Subject: Statistical Methods

(2) Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 16:42:15 CST (19 lines)
From: Glenn Everett <IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject: Calvin & Hobbes

(3) Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 23:00 EST (23 lines)
From: BMENK@ccr2.bbn.com
Subject: Another Judas title

(4) Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 14:51+0000 (13 lines)
From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE
Subject: 6.0671 Judas

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 16:27 EDT
From: Susan Hockey <HOCKEY@ZODIAC.BITNET>
Subject: Statistical Methods

In my view, by far the best introduction to statistics for the
analysis of style is Anthony Kenny, The Computation of Style,
Pergamon 1982. For those who read French, Charles Muller,
Initiation aux Methodes de la Statistique Linguistique, Hachette
1973 is also very good. Also useful for beginners is a series of
articles by Norman Thomson beginning in ALLC Bulletin volume 1 (1973).

I have taught elementary statistics for literary analysis using
notes I compiled from Muller and also from Thomson's articles and
a summer workshop he presented in 1975. I also used Kenny's
book as soon as it appeared. He and I once gave a class together
on this.

For authorship studies, the classic work is Mosteller and Wallace,
Inference and Disputed Authorship: The Federalist, which is fairly
hard going for the non-mathematician. Anthony Kenny's The Aristotelian
Ethics contains several chapters on stylistic/authorship comparisons.

I have several more references which were collected for the bibliography
we used in last year's CETH Summer Seminar.

Students of the history of these techniques might like to look at
the Annotated Bibliography of Statistical Stylistic compiled by
Richard Bailey and Lubomir Dolezel in 1968. Just to show that this
is nothing new, they have many references which antedate computers.
Of particular interest are two articles by T C Mendenhall, `The
Characteristic Curves of Composition', Science (March 1887) 237-249 and
`A Mechanical Solution of a Literary Problem', Popular Science Monthly
(December 1901) 97-105.

And now the interesting question in all of this: just how valid are
these statistical methods, when applied to text which is not random?

Susan Hockey
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities
Rutgers and Princeton Universities

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 16:42:15 CST
From: Glenn Everett <IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject: Calvin & Hobbes

> Hobbes seems to embody a sort of natural, unreflective virtue--
> Calvin's conscience, someone observed. So it appears that Calvin's
> appearance is a visual pun on Hobbes's famous characterization of life apart
> from civil society, while Hobbes is an example of Calvin's conception of
> natural man. (Or natural tiger?)

Since we are overloading this little comic strip with significance (in
the tradition of _The Gospel According to Peanuts_ and _The Tao of
Pooh_) how about T.S. Eliot's line from "Gerontion": "In the juvescence
of the year / Came Christ the Tiger."

Glenn Everett
English Department
University of Tennessee at Martin
ivaa@utmartn.bitnet
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 23:00 EST
From: BMENK@ccr2.bbn.com
Subject: Another Judas title

Reagarding the request for Judas rehab I have two more titles that may be of
interest:

Morley Callaghan's "A Time For Judas"

and Sholem Asch's "The Apostle", which is actually about Paul than Judas, but
in which Judas figures fairly prominently as I recall. Asch also wrote another
work, whose title escapes me at the moment, but which examines
Jewish-"Chistian" differences during Jesus' last days.

Asch is not nearly the writer that Callaghan is however. I've never seen
Callaghan's book in the States, however. One might have to order it from
Canada.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Bobb Menk Voice: 617-873-3278
Senior Technical Librarian Fax: 617-873-2156
Bolt, Beranek & Newman Internet: bmenk@bbn.com

(4) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 14:51+0000
From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE
Subject: 6.0671 Judas

There is also a novel by Claud Cockburn (better known for the best C20
autobiography, I Claud) called Jericho Road, which begins with the story
of the Good Samaritan sarcastically retold (the man the Samaritan saves
turns out to be a druggie with a long record, and the Samaritan has big
trouble with the cops) and gradually moves into a retelling of the passion
story as seen by the Samaritan and his rescued traveller: Judas features
as the `True Revolutionary', angered at Jesus' betrayal of the Cause. Not
I think a new idea, but it is a worth-while read.
Timothy Reuter MGH Munich