文学作品中的“小世界”——菲茨杰拉德小说人物关系网络的实证分析

The "Small World" in Literary Works:An Experimental Analysis of Characters Relation Networks in Fitzgerald's Novels

文学之美在于映照现实。为检验这一观点,对菲茨杰拉德的四部小说采用自然语言处理技术提取小说人物角色,并构建人物共现关系网络;基于复杂网络拓扑测度,计算此网络的结构特性,结果表明:菲茨杰拉德四部小说中的人物关系网络均具有类似无尺度的度分布和小世界特征的结构特性,特别是《了不起的盖茨比》和《夜色温柔》中人物关系网络的直径与六度分离定理高度吻合,说明经典小说的魅力来自其描写的社会结构与现实社会高度相似,定量实证分析方法可为定性文学评论提供佐证。本研究为传统文学批评开启了新的视角,提供了新的工具,相关方法可用于对小说作品文学性的评判以及对现有小说定性评价的定量解释。

The beauty of literature lies in the reality.To test this idea,we use natural language processing technology to extract the characters of Fitzgerald＇s four novels,and construct the co-occurrence networks of characters.The structural properties of these networks are calculated based on the complex network topology measures.The experimental analysis results show that all the characters co-occurrence networks have the structural characteristics of scale-free degree distribution and small world.It is especially worth noting that both the diameters of the characters co-occurrence networks in the Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night are equal to six,which is highly consistent with the six degrees of separation theorem.This means the charm of a classical novel results from a high degree of similarity between the social structure it describes and the real society,and quantitative experimental analysis can provide evidence for the qualitative literature reviews.In the case of traditional literary criticism,the research of this paper opens a new perspective and provides new tools.Our methods can be adopted to judge the literariness of novels,and to provide quantitative interpretations to the existing qualitative criticisms of the novel.