La stilometria per gli studi letterari: un'introduzione

The paper introduces the computational technique of stylometry (i.e., the quantitative study of style) in literary studies. After a brief outline of its history and disciplinary placement, two methodologies are presented in detail: Delta, a measure to calculate stylistic similarities; and Zeta, a procedure to explore lexical choices. Through the analysis of six case studies, the main applications are presented, with references to authorship attribution and to the “distant reading” framework. Finally, a theoretical discussion on the potential and shortcomings of stylometry closes the paper.