The ERC-funded MELT project studies the macroevolution of European literature: the overarching patterns of intertextual influences in literary fiction between 1800 and 2000.

This project relies on the full-text HathiTrust digital library, with over 10 million digitized books – and on advanced methods of computational text analysis. We aim to construct massive dynamic networks of book history, capturing the thematic influences between authors, the emergence of new literary communities (e.g., genres), and their decay. In this way, the MELT will essentially build a gigantic “map” of European literary history.

In parallel, we simulate the evolution of books, creating artificial “authors” powered by large language models. Such simulations allow testing the robustness of our network construction methods.

The study of this massive size and scope will allow answering many fundamental questions about literature. For example, what is the role of demographic turnover in the change of literary topics? How do disruptive events – wars, pandemics, and revolutions – influence the fabric of writing? What makes certain books bestselling and, as a consequence, hyper-influential?

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