ABSTRACT
Computational stylistics and text analysis have a long, rich history. In retrospect, because of the nature of texts and the capabilities of computers, it seems quite predictable that they would be among the first applications of computers to the humanities. Many religious, literary, and historical texts are highly valued cultural achievements, and some of them have been analyzed for hundreds or even thousands of years. They also contain large numbers of highly significant and meaningful words and other textual features. Thus it seems natural that scholars should have moved quickly to enhance and augment their own description, characterization, and analysis of these rich cultural documents by harnessing the power of computers to store, search, count, and compare textual features. The rapid growth of the power of computers and the rapid increase in the availability of electronic versions of texts have revolutionized the scope and the kinds of analysis that can be performed. At their core, however, computational stylistics and text analysis have remained true to their origins, and continue to use the power of the computer to improve our understanding of texts.
