From literary output to literary criticism: Discovering Shaw's rhetoric

摘要

Research on changes in Shaw's rhetoric inMrs. Warren's Profession, Major Barbara, andHeartbreak Houseled me to a heuristic for gaining literary critical control over computer output. This essay describes the eleven-step process: stepping away from the data, stating first premises, developing a working hypothesis, classifying computer-sorted data, marking implicit literary sub-structures, collecting sub-structural data into tables, applying earlier statistical observations, choosing parts for detailed analysis, designing a visual method for representing the analysis, presenting segment by segment analysis of the selected data, and making larger descriptive generalizations. While describing this heuristic, the essay also reports on the Shaw research.