Gabriel Tarde

Multi-level framework models creative transformation across literary text representations

A new arXiv preprint introduces a computational framework for quantifying creativity as selective transformation across lexical, semantic, conceptual, structural, and narrative levels of literary texts. Drawing on sociological theories of imitation from Tarde and Baldwin, the authors apply directional alignment and calibrated similarity measures to historically documented literary relationships. The work produces 'transformation profiles' that characterize where imitation persists and where creative divergence occurs across text pairs.