Evolutive dynamics in early modern European drama

This dissertation employs computation methods to investigate a problem of literary history: the evolution of European early modern drama (ca. 1550-1700). In particular, it strives to empirically assess the claim that different European national spaces developed formally different theatre aesthetics throughout the XVII century. To do so, a sizeable digital corpus of early modern plays is assembled and investigated through a previously underdeveloped method in computational literary studies, i.e., the vectorisation of texts according to their formal features. Results appear to confirm scholarly consensus on literary history while providing a new data-driven perspective on the matter.