Creative Transformation in Literary Texts: Modelling Change Across Representational Levels
arXiv:2607.28513
The paper proposes a computational framework that quantifies how literary works transform earlier texts across lexical, semantic, conceptual, structural, and narrative levels, using directional alignment and calibrated similarity measures to profile imitation and creative divergence.
Abstract
Creativity is often framed as the production of novelty, yet many cultural works emerge through transformation of earlier artifacts and not through isolated invention. Drawing on theories of imitation by Gabriel Tarde and James Mark Baldwin, this paper models creativity as selective transformation across multiple levels of textual representation. We introduce a multi-level framework that compares literary texts across lexical, semantic, conceptual, structural, and narrative dimensions using directional alignment and control calibrated similarity measures. Applying the model to historically documented literary relationships, we show that different pairs preserve source structure at different representational levels while diverging in others. These transformation profiles provide a quantitative method for characterizing how imitation persists and where creative divergence occurs within literary works.