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<p>After briefly analysing the nature of an anonymous character, the author of this article examines their narrative and social functions in a corpus of French and English novels from the first half of the nineteenth century, as part of a project entitled “the demography of characters.” This project favours a statistical approach, and thanks to computer-assisted visualisation, reveals the structure of fictional populations. The author shows that the number and functions of anonymous characters, often reduced to ancillary functions, or intended to highlight the main characters, is constitutive of an author’s demographic style. The status of anonymous characters, often associated with crowds, is also related to the political views expressed in the works studied.</p>

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Unnamed characters in 19th -century French and English novels

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月6日

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  • Françoise Lavocat

摘要

After briefly analysing the nature of an anonymous character, the author of this article examines their narrative and social functions in a corpus of French and English novels from the first half of the nineteenth century, as part of a project entitled “the demography of characters.” This project favours a statistical approach, and thanks to computer-assisted visualisation, reveals the structure of fictional populations. The author shows that the number and functions of anonymous characters, often reduced to ancillary functions, or intended to highlight the main characters, is constitutive of an author’s demographic style. The status of anonymous characters, often associated with crowds, is also related to the political views expressed in the works studied.