Contemporary poetry book reviews: quantitative analysis

Abstract

The work displays progress and results of the quantitative study of poetry book reviews published in the Russian-language literary periodicals in recent years (2014–2019). We describe the method of material selection (chronological framework, range of sources – literary and philological journals, newspapers, – criteria for selection of literary-critical texts), the method of calculating the volume of material. We give the main quantitative characteristics of the received corpus: total number and total volume of texts, average annual number and volume, average volume of one review (calculated both for the entire array and separately for review-digest – bibliographic leaflets), number of reviewers, number of sources. All sources, which are 46 literary publications, are divided into three groups, depending on the published volume of reviews. The work contains a brief description of these publications in connection with the review activity: the presence and features of literary-critical strategy, rubrication, etc. The appendices to the work provide detailed quantitative data. The research collects a significant corpus of texts (more than 400 a. s.) describing and analyzing contemporary Russian poetry. The quantitative data obtained for the first time helps to form a relevant scientific picture of “who makes Russian literature today”.