Allusions in Context
From The Waste Land Wiki
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==Looking at Allusions with Gephi== | ==Looking at Allusions with Gephi== | ||
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| + | Network graphs are useful for visualizing information that might otherwise be difficult to inter-relate. Graphing the allusions found in “The Wasteland” and the other contemporary works of literature from the magazines it was published in with a program like Gephi (http://gephi.org/) can show upfront which types of allusions are used the most in which pieces—something that would take a lot of tedious work to deduce by hand. This information can be used as a starting point for analysis. | ||
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| + | As with any data-displaying system, subjective decisions have to be made about how to categorize the data and what counts as relevant information at all. I have decided for simplicity’s sake to consider only one degree of allusion in the graphs. For example, when a certain piece of literature is alluded to, its author is also indirectly implied, but I have chosen to include only the name of the literary work itself. | ||
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| + | In the networks included on this page, the points on the graph, or nodes, are organized based on the “thing referred to.” For example, in The Player Queen by W.B. Yeats, found in The Dial, one character mentions that “my saviour was content with a stable,” which alludes to the birth of Jesus, so the allusion appears as a node called “Nativity.” From the alluded-to nodes come a variety of lines, or edges, that connect them to nodes with information about their Location (what piece from the magazine they come from, or what section of “The Wasteland” they come from), their Source (Dial, Criterion, or “Wasteland”), and what type of allusion it is (place, religion, literature, etc.). By moving the nodes around to see where their connecting edges are pulled, patterns start to emerge. | ||
