Abstract

This paper is an overview of the opportunities and challenges of using large-scale text mining to answer research questions that stem from the humanities in general and literature specifically. In this paper, we will discuss a data-intensive research methodology and how different views of digital text affect answers to research questions. We will discuss results derived from text mining, how these results can be evaluated, and their relation to hypotheses and research questions. Finally, we will discuss some pitfalls of computational literary analysis and give some pointers as to how these can be avoided.