Maria Valtorta (1897-1961, Italian mystic)—bedridden since 1934 because paralyzed—wrote in Italian 13,193 pages of 122 school notebooks concerning alleged mystical visions on Jesus’ life, during World War II and fe...Maria Valtorta (1897-1961, Italian mystic)—bedridden since 1934 because paralyzed—wrote in Italian 13,193 pages of 122 school notebooks concerning alleged mystical visions on Jesus’ life, during World War II and few following years. The contents—about 2.64 million words—are now scattered in different books. She could write from 2 to 6 hours without pausing, with steady speed, and twice in the same day. She never made corrections and was very proficient in Italian. We have studied her writing activity concerning her alleged mystical experience with the main scope of establishing the time sequence of daily writing. This is possible because she diligently annotated the date of almost every text. We have reconstructed the time series of daily words and have converted them into time series of writing time, by assuming a realistic speed of 20 words per minute, a reliable average value of fast handwriting speed, applicable to Maria Valtorta. She wrote for 1340 days, about 3.67 years of equivalent contiguous writing time, mostly concentrated in the years 1943 to 1948. This study is a first approach in evaluating the effort done, in terms of writing time, by a mystic turned out to be a very effective literary author, whose texts are interesting to read per se, beyond any judgement—not of concern here—on her alleged visions.展开更多
The statistical theory of language translation is used to compare how a literary character speaks to different audiences by diversifying two important linguistic communication channels: the “sentences channel” and t...The statistical theory of language translation is used to compare how a literary character speaks to different audiences by diversifying two important linguistic communication channels: the “sentences channel” and the “interpunctions channel”. The theory can “measure” how the author shapes a character speaking to different audiences, by modulating deep-language parameters. To show its power, we have applied the theory to the literary corpus of Maria Valtorta, an Italian mystic of the XX-century. The likeness index , ranging from 0 to 1, allows to “measure” how two linguistic channels are similar, therefore implying that a character speaks to different audiences in the same way. A 6-dB difference between the signal-to-noise ratios of two channels already gives I<sub>L</sub> ≈ 0.5, a threshold below which the two channels depend very little on each other, therefore implying that the character addresses different audiences differently. In conclusion, multiple linguistic channels can describe the “fine tuning” that a literary author uses to diversify characters or distinguish the behavior of the same character in different situations. The theory can be applied to literary corpora written in any alphabetical language.展开更多
文摘Maria Valtorta (1897-1961, Italian mystic)—bedridden since 1934 because paralyzed—wrote in Italian 13,193 pages of 122 school notebooks concerning alleged mystical visions on Jesus’ life, during World War II and few following years. The contents—about 2.64 million words—are now scattered in different books. She could write from 2 to 6 hours without pausing, with steady speed, and twice in the same day. She never made corrections and was very proficient in Italian. We have studied her writing activity concerning her alleged mystical experience with the main scope of establishing the time sequence of daily writing. This is possible because she diligently annotated the date of almost every text. We have reconstructed the time series of daily words and have converted them into time series of writing time, by assuming a realistic speed of 20 words per minute, a reliable average value of fast handwriting speed, applicable to Maria Valtorta. She wrote for 1340 days, about 3.67 years of equivalent contiguous writing time, mostly concentrated in the years 1943 to 1948. This study is a first approach in evaluating the effort done, in terms of writing time, by a mystic turned out to be a very effective literary author, whose texts are interesting to read per se, beyond any judgement—not of concern here—on her alleged visions.
文摘The statistical theory of language translation is used to compare how a literary character speaks to different audiences by diversifying two important linguistic communication channels: the “sentences channel” and the “interpunctions channel”. The theory can “measure” how the author shapes a character speaking to different audiences, by modulating deep-language parameters. To show its power, we have applied the theory to the literary corpus of Maria Valtorta, an Italian mystic of the XX-century. The likeness index , ranging from 0 to 1, allows to “measure” how two linguistic channels are similar, therefore implying that a character speaks to different audiences in the same way. A 6-dB difference between the signal-to-noise ratios of two channels already gives I<sub>L</sub> ≈ 0.5, a threshold below which the two channels depend very little on each other, therefore implying that the character addresses different audiences differently. In conclusion, multiple linguistic channels can describe the “fine tuning” that a literary author uses to diversify characters or distinguish the behavior of the same character in different situations. The theory can be applied to literary corpora written in any alphabetical language.
