A Comparative Framework for Capturing the Diversity of Verbal Art and Poetry

Verbal art and poetry are assumed to be a universal aesthetic behavior with deep evolutionary roots. Yet, the global diversity of the linguistic substrate of poetically employed language remains largely unexplored. A major obstacle is the lack of a comprehensive comparative framework that is able to integrate existing research and expandable to cover hitherto undescribed poetic practice. Building on previous research, we introduce and discuss the conceptual basis for PoeticLanguage, an analytical framework for the empirical comparative study of verbal art and poetry. In addition to the linguistic aspects of each poetolect, the framework includes systematic information about multimodal components of poetic practice as well as its cultural context with interfaces to extant cultural databases. Data collections based on this framework are expected to deploy their potential when asking questions concerning the diversity, distribution and evolution of poetic practice and its relation to, and interaction with, other forms of human culture, such as religious believes, dance, visual art, and music.