Word Frequency Patterns

[sixtynineseventy]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me if there is any literature criticism on word frequency number patterns in poetry, or even what is otherwise prose?

Example of what I am talking about:

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/poe/edgar_allan/p74p/poem66.html

In Edgar Allen Poe's Bells poem, the word"time" occurs 12 times, which makes sense because there are twelve numbers on a clock. The poem has a duple meter (often labeled as 4/4 time on sheet music), and the word "rhyme" occurs 4 times. The word "bells" occurs in increasing numbers in each of the four parts:

10-first
13 second
15 third
24 fourth

This is not terribly significant except that in the last stanza, the fact that the word "bells" occurs 24 times matches the thing about bells "Keeping time, time, time."

I am interested in:

A. Is anyone anywhere keeping track of word frequency patterns?
B. Is all poetry already analyzed for this sort of thing already and I am just ignorant?
C. Is this basically new? Did I just discover something for the first time?

 

[Liam]

Don't know about poetry, but Ben Blatt's recent book Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve considers literature from the point of view of analytical data--words and numbers, as it were. He is less preoccupied with the significance of those numbers but rather focuses his attention on what those numbers can reveal about each writer's individual style. I found it both informative and very easy to read.

 

[sixtynineseventy]

Thank you. I had never heard of it. And your link gives me a free preview.

I went and did a second word frequency study, this time on "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-8.txt A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, after first removing the chapter formatting :

"christmas" occurs 84 times
"time" also occurs 84 times


Everybody knows that there are 12 days of Christmas. And "[Marley] died seven years ago, this very night." Since 12*7=84, the number 84 is symbolic of Christmastime and Marley's death.


"clock" and variations occurs 12 times, matching the twelve hours on the clockface.

"minute", "Death", and "spectre" - also occur 12 times each, which makes sense because clocks are symbols of mortality (for example, Captain Hook and his fear of clocks).


"Ding" and "Dong" each occur six times, fitting this as 6+6=12


"Tiny" occurs 24 times, which relates to death in that Tiny Tim does not die. Instead he has a second lease on life. 12*2=24.


"Scrooge" occurs 363 times (including one where the o-o-o s are stretched out with hyphens). This is significant because Scrooge was comfortable during 363 days out of the year. He was put off during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as he said, "Let me leave [Christmas] alone, then." 363+2=365 days of the year


"Seven" and variants-occurs 14 times, as 7*2=14


"one" & "ones" occurs exactly 100 times


"third"-3 times


"nine"-3 times, as nine is three squared


"fifteen"-three times, as 5*3=15


Robert & Bob occur 55 times total, which as it is divisible by 5 relates to his association in the story with the number 15:


"Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name"


"Tiny Tim" occurs 22 times, relating to his father as both names are divisible by 11.

 

[Liam]

This is indeed fascinating; I think what you're intending to do is to study the significance of specific words in certain texts, and to show how that relates to the overall imagery/symbolism of the work in question. I don't usually go in for this sort of thing as I don't have a mathematical frame of mind,

 

[sixtynineseventy]

study the significance of specific words in certain texts, and to show how that relates to the overall imagery/symbolism of the work in question.

Yes, I am. You would probably not be surprised to learn that I like metaphysical poetry (John Dunne and George Herbert).

I am influenced by "Gioacchino Michael Cascione" who is also listed as "Joachim M. Cascione" on Google Books.

I heard him speak in person once years ago when he traveled to where I then lived. He is a pastor who used to be an Art History professor. I have only read one essay by him on the subject, and have not bought either of his books titled "In Search of the Biblical Order" from the 80s or recently. However, I emailed him about this thread right after I started it and he thanked me. He also noticed that no one on the forum has criticized me so far on secular literature, when so many have criticized his work on the Bible. I suppose it helps that people are less likely to fight over the meaning of secular literature than over the meaning of the Bible.

Cascione has over the decades been finding many numerically similar phrase repetitions in the Bible but had not been able to find them elsewhere. He has gone to great lengths to prove that they are not a random chance sort of thing, even to the extent of enlisting the help of a conservative Jewish math professor to substantiate it.

Cascione disagrees with some or all of this, but my theory is that many works have numerical patterns in them, that they are a subconsciously generated form of poetry, and that they serve to make works more appealing to the reader/listener's subconscious.

I think (but still hope I'm wrong) that Cascione (& by extension, myself) am onto something new. I will not be doing this anytime soon, but this could probably be tied somewhere into Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious or some variation of it. This could also relate to numerology where numbers have symbolic significance. I don't think that there are any hard and fast meanings to the numbers, but that they relate to context. So while 12 and 24 might relate to mortality in a modern work, it would not have such significance in the Bible where people didn't have watches and clocks everywhere.

What kind of person would want to look for number patterns? Besides someone being superstitious or having OCD, perhaps there is a practical use. Number patterns could help to resolve questions of authorship. Such as a work having multiple authors is unlikely to have a unified number pattern. Also of course this phenomenon could be used to support theories. For example, Henry Schaefer-Simmern supported his theory about art by looking at small patterns in how little kids draw.

If any forum readers want to look for patterns, here are some speculations about how to find it:

1. Find works that reference numbers in the ordinary sense, and then look for that number to show up as the frequency of a phrase or word repetition relating to it. Phrases are even better to look for than single words, if only because it helps to reduce the likelihood that the pattern was generated by random chance like with pareidolia (seeing faces where there are none).

2. Works produced by a single author and not edited much.

3. Find works produced largely in a single burst of creative output. Like a mania or hypomania, even.

4. Stream-of-consciousness type literature, or literature that is unusually heartfelt.

5. Older works more than modern ones, because back then people were more sensitive and mental illness more untreated.

6. Remove subject labels, chapter headings, etc.

7. Preferably no translations, or literal translations if necessary as this sort of subtle pattern could be lost in translation.

8. Authors who wrote right after waking or before sleeping.

9. To find single forms of words, use http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp

10. To look for longer phrases or all variations of a word, put the work into a .txt file and open it in Chrome or a similar browser. Then use the Find or Ctrl+F feature to search for words

 

[sixtynineseventy]

I just learned something. So word frequency reflects subconscious processes, as I had thought.


https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...ls-fundamental-pattern-of-human-thinking/Data mining reveals fundamental pattern of human thinking


Word frequency patterns show that humans process common and uncommon words in different ways, with important consequences for natural-language processing.


[h=1][/h]https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611640/data-mining-reveals-fundamental-pattern-of-human-thinking/