Text Analysis with R for Students of Literature – Book Review

Our ability to access, process, and analyze large quantities of data has been increasing at a dizzying pace over the last few years. This data-driven revolution is fundamentally changing many professional and academic fields. Many people, especially the long-term practitioners in humanities and similar disciplines, find this change worrying, and in many ways exactly contrary to the spirit of these disciplines. Pouring over long and demanding texts, while internalizing them and becoming personally immersed in them, seems to be at the very core of what these disciplines are all about. And yet, as both a lover of humanities and a die-hard techy, I find this latest development incredibly exciting.