SUMMARY of Rommel's book on the epic poem Don Juan by Lord Byron.

Literary computing enhances the critic's powers of memory and recall, and as error-prone manual sampling becomes obsolete textual analysis as well as the ensuing interpretation of a text as a whole can be based on a complete survey of all passages meeting predefined patterns or criteria.
The discussion of the history of literary computing shows that only a limited number of textual phenomena can be analysed profitably in the context of a qualitative, computer-assisted analysis of style. These phenomena have to have some surface features that can be identified by electronic means. The methodological implications of such an approach to texts accommodates computer-assisted studies within the theoretical framework of Roger Fowlers New Stylistics . Micro-stylistic analysis and the interpretation of surface features are then incorporated into a structural approach to Byron's epic poem Don Juan Within the hermeneutic framework of literary criticism as applied in this study electronic sampling provides a complete survey of three isolated textual features that are considered relevant: rhyme, word clusters, and parenthesis.
The discussion of markup plays a significant role in computer-assisted studies in general and in this study of Don Juan in particular. In order to use the complex indexing capabilities of the computer effectively, questions concerning editorial consistency, scanning, the definition of "context" and of tagging, automatically or semi-automatically, are dealt with. Finally, there is a critical evaluation of the three programmes used for this analysis: Micro-OCP, WordPerfect, and TUSTEP, the "Tuebinger System von Textverarbeitungsprogrammen", the most effective programme for literary computing. The discussion of methodological implications of literary computing in general forms the central aspect of the first part of this study.
The second part focusses on the analysis of the text itself. Byron's Don Juan comprises some 130,000 words, organized in ottava rima in 1,973 stanzas. In this highly formal structure specific patterns of mosaic rhyme are employed, often undermining the rigid formality of the overall structure by producing a comic effect. Computer-assisted indexing, locating and sampling strategies provide a complete survey of all syllable combinations in line-end positions and form the basis for the ensuing analysis and interpretation of the uses and functions of rhyme in the text. The comic rhyme of multi-syllable word combinations proves to be one of the central devices of the poem, and the variety of different forms further enhances Don Juan's comic effect on the reader.
The formal setup of the stanza is provided by the rhyme pattern of the ottava rima . Six lines form the main body of the stanza, followed by a concluding couplet. By further subdividing the first six lines on the basis of punctuation, an "introduction" of two lines, set off against the "main body" of the stanza, can clearly be observed both syntactically and thematically. This is further enhanced by tracing the distribution of two dominant stylistic devices: word clusters and parentheses. Word clusters, defined as asyndetic and polysyndetic strings of a minimum of three elements, supply a rich reservoir of thematically relevant vocabulary in close proximity to each other. The internal structure of these clusters as well as their distribution in the individual stanza and the whole text sheds light on Byron's way of enhancing the thematic focus of the poem: on the one hand highlighting the cumulative effect by addition and on the other hand undermining the reader's expectations by zeugmatic effects. Both the quantitative and the qualitative analysis of word clusters show that collocations are effectively employed in the poem to startle, amuse, and direct the reader.
While word clusters provide a means of emphasis in structurally important positions of the stanza and the poem as a whole, parenthesis is invoked for metafictional narrator-reader communication. Often digressive in nature, syntactically marked by dash and parentheses and limited to units of sub-sentence length, these "asides" enter into a metafictional discourse with the reader, who is directly addressed by the narrator. The computer-assisted analysis of parentheses starts with patterns of distribution and includes a thematic analysis. Previous manual studies have failed to apply consistent search criteria to this phenomenon in the long text. In analysing the distribution of parenthetical digressions in the poem, subdivided into narrative units as opposed to cantos, a change in the type of discourse used by the narrator can be detected. This changing role of author, narrator, and protagonist in their communication with the reader forms one of the poem's most intriguing problems, and the computer-assisted analysis of all digressions traces the narrative structure of the text when protagonist and narrator blend, and the analysis of the respective context of the parentheses sheds light on the different aspects of communication in the poem.
By using a computer it becomes possible to investigate questions of poetic and narrative technique in Don Juan thoroughly, focussing on specifically selected stylistic devices, "and trace [them] in this poem every line."

SOURCE:
Thomas Rommel, "And trace it in this poem every line" Methoden und Verfahren computerunterstützter Textanalyse am Beispiel von Lord Byrons Don Juan (Tübinger Beiträge zur Anglistik; 15). Tübingen: Narr, 1995.

"... an expensive book, yes, but *definitely* worth the money...."
(undisclosed source close to the author)