I selected the text of Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley from Project Gutenberg and loaded the text into Voyant Tools. The selection of Frankenstein was based on the fact that it discusses the topics of science and creation, which also became important for the development of artificial intelligence.
Using the tool Voyant allowed me to realize how technology provides another approach to analyzing the text. The use of technology allows focusing not only on the reading process but also on the patterns present in the whole book, such as commonly used words, the frequency of particular word usage, as well as relations between different words. In the novel under analysis, one of the patterns revealed by me using the tool was the frequent usage of the word “man.” The usage of the word in the text made me pay attention to the frequency of discussing humanity and being a human in the novel in question.
On the other hand, I believe that a computerized analysis is not an equivalent substitute for the actual interpretation of the work. The computer may help one to see that a certain word is used often, but this does not give any insight into why the author uses this word and what it might mean in a specific case.
This is all the more reason why I feel that it matters even more now in the age of AI. AI has the ability to analyze a huge amount of text data and recognize patterns far quicker than humans ever can, but the conclusions it reaches will always seem logical even if they are not entirely correct or complete. One needs to be cautious of believing in an interpretation provided by AI before analyzing the original text data to find out how this conclusion was arrived at.
In summary, text analysis using computers offers an alternative approach to the study of literature. In my opinion, the most effective way is to use both the conventional method of reading and the computer programs such as Voyant and AI together.