A Distant Reading Model of Intersectional Identity in Fiction: What Constitutes Character in the Early Modern Yiddish Romance Bovo d’Antona?

Abstract

Abstract This article illustrates how distant reading methods that take an intersectional approach to fictional identity in medieval and early modern texts can shed new light on the identity models being hailed in these texts. To this end it discusses and contextualises the results of employing mixed-method digital analysis of intersectional identity to the complex and layered fictional world of Elye Bokher’s renowned fifteenth-century Yiddish romance Bovo d’Antona .