Burgess, Gordon J. A.

About the author: Gordon J. A. Burgess studied German and French at the Universities of London and Freiburg i. Br. , before joining the Department of German at the University of Aberdeen in 1976, where he currently holds the position of Reader in German.

Computer assisted Analysis of Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandtschaften the Enigma of Elective Affinities

1999 0-7734-8032-3
This is the first full-length computer-aided examination of Goethe's novel. This study focuses on a close critical analysis of the text, underpinning its findings with often incontrovertible evidence based on the outputs of computer-generated indexes and concordances. The examination of the text itself is complemented by an overview of critical attitudes toward the novel, from Goethe's contemporaries down to the present day, and by an outline of the possibilities and limitations of a computer-based text analysis.