This paper investigates the Czech contribution to the world literature over the past two centuries (1820-2020) from a global perspective. It uses computational methods to process and analyse data from the OCLC, Czech Literary Bibliography, and Czech National Library and delivers three case studies demonstrating the potential of computationally analysing Czech literature in translation. It analyses the dynamics of gender representation, target language trends, and the global diversity in terms of clustering authors according to their target language profiles. Among other things, the results identify five clusters of authors with one cluster represented globally, and the other four established in limited target language combinations.
This study focuses on the methodology behind digital literary cartography and quantitative analysis of narrative texts, while attempting to show, through specific examples, one of the ways they can functionally interconnect. The first part of the study presents an overview, focusing on selected foreign literary-cartographic projects, while the second part presents some original research, focusing on the literary-cartographic mapping of Prague’s fictional topography in 19th century Czech prose. In addition to cartographic models, the study also presents basic models for quantitative analysis of selected criteria relating to fictional narratives. The ultimate aim of the paper is both to show the opportunities for combining the two basic types of models and to demonstrate their potential for informing the way literary works are interpreted.