Literature as a diffusion process

Abstract

In the second half of the 20th century a new viewpoint to literature was established. This viewpoint presents literature as a reflection of nature in the narrative form transmitted through humans. Unlike the traditional viewpoint, which considers literature as an invention of humans for cultural needs, this new viewpoint is open for study of literature by use of mathematical methods. In this chapter we demonstrate similarities between literature and diffusion, and present some ideas about how to model the structure of literary texts as a specific diffusion process. The chapter is addressed not only to mathematicians but also to literary philosophers. Therefore, a speculative form is used with a minimum number of mathematical formulae, and necessary information from related fields is included in an effort to make the chapter self-contained. © 2017 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.